Kamna Balhara, MD

Kamna Balhara, M.D., M.A., FACEP, is an associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and associate program director of the Johns Hopkins Emergency Medicine Residency Program. She is a founding co-director of the Health Humanities at Hopkins Emergency Medicine initiative and director of the Health Humanities fellowship.

After graduating from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Balhara completed her residency training at the Johns Hopkins emergency medicine program, where she served as chief resident. During residency, she completed her Focused Advanced Specialized Training in global emergency services. Upon completion of residency, Dr. Balhara served as the assistant residency program director at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for two years before returning to Johns Hopkins in 2018.

Dr. Balhara’s academic interests include the health humanities in medical education, equity in learning and clinical environments, and disparities in access to care in domestic and global settings. She has authored multiple publications on graduate medical education, humanities, social determinants of health, and disparities in healthcare access, and has developed tools and resources for other educators seeking to apply the humanities towards equity in healthcare and health professions education. Her work has been funded by the AAMC, the Josiah Macy Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Emergency Medicine Foundation.

Dr. Balhara is a recipient of the Hopkins IEE Educational Program Award, the Johns Hopkins Diversity Leadership Council Recognition Award, and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Early Educator Award. She has lectured nationally at the ACEP, CORD, and SAEM national conferences and internationally at AMEE. She serves on the steering committee for the National Health Humanities Consortium, is chair of the American College of Emergency Physicians Medical Humanities section, chair of the  Diversity, Equity, Inclusion committee of the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine, and is a member of the editorial board of the journal Academic Emergency Medicine.