Dr. Lara Setti has been selected as the Berkshire District Medical Society’s 2022 Community Clinician of the Year, an award recognizing her professionalism and contributions as a physician.
Dr. Setti is a board-certified family physician with Community Health Programs in Great Barrington, where she has provided care to patients of all ages, from birth to passing, since 2008. She works at CHP’s Great Barrington Health Center.
For the past 18 years, she has worked in community health with a particular interest in immigrant health, health care disparities and collaborative health care models. She is passionate about life-long learning and striving to improve health care outcomes, continuity and quality for individuals, families and communities with compassion and innovation. Most of all, she treasures the relationships she has with her patients.
In her current position, Dr. Setti has worked with immigrant communities, serving as the only civil surgeon seeing patients in Berkshire County. Over the past few years, she has developed collaborative relationships with local non-profits and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to care for unaccompanied minors and refugees in our rural community.
Dr. Setti earned her medical degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, after which she obtained a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University. She completed her residency in family medicine at Ventura County Medical Center in Ventura, Calif. There, she served as the chief resident and was recognized as “Most Outstanding Teaching Resident.” She received her undergraduate degree with honors in human development and social relations from Earlham College, where she completed her thesis on environmental racism.
Dr. Setti has served as an environmental activist in the rural South and she learned to speak Spanish in El Salvador, where she also served as an independent post-war election observer. She has also practiced medicine in rural clinics in both El Salvador and the Amazonia region of Ecuador.
She recently served on the board of directors for Multicultural Bridge in Lee and the Medical Advisory Panel of the Berkshire Waldorf School.
She lives in Great Barrington with her husband, Chris Clark, a hospital physician at Fairview Hospital, and her two children. When she is not working, Dr. Setti enjoys gardening, hiking, cycling, and sharing time and adventures with her family.