Dr. Kamna Balhara, MD, MA, is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Assistant Program Director of the emergency medicine residency program at Johns Hopkins. She practices clinically in the emergency departments at Hopkins and Bayview. Her research interests include graduate medical education, patient safety and access to care, and the medical humanities. She is especially interested in developing the role of medical humanities in graduate medical education curricula, with a specific focus on the roles of narrative medicine and the visual arts. She also works on projects in the field of global emergency medicine; her current international projects include collaborations in Nepal and Peru.

Dr. Balhara lived in New Delhi, Singapore, and Texas, prior to obtaining her bachelor’s degree in French Studies from Rice University. She then completed her Master’s degree in French Cultural Studies from Columbia University, where her thesis explored the convergence of commerce, arts, and literature in 19th century representations of women. She subsequently completed medical school and residency training at Johns Hopkins, where she served as chief resident. During residency, she completed focused training in Global Emergency Services, while working on collaborative projects in the UAE and France. After graduation, she served as Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Assistant Program Director of the residency program at the University of Texas in San Antonio, prior to returning to Hopkins. While in San Antonio, Dr. Balhara continued her work in global emergency medicine and patient safety. She was also a member of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics; she was a course director for “Art Rounds,” an interdisciplinary course for medical students and allied health professions students based at the McNay Museum in San Antonio, and an instructor for the “Medicine through Literature” course for medical students.