Bruce P. Barnett, MD, JD, MBA
Medical Consultant
Dr. Bruce Barnett has served on the CLRC professional panel since 2001, providing counseling to callers to aid them in medical, legal, financial and bioethical concerns. Dr. Barnett earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1975 and has practiced medicine as a board certified family physician with a special interest in providing care to the relatively underserved, including Medicaid recipients, and people who are elderly, poor, or incarcerated. In the early 1980s he founded one of the first medical groups to provide Medicaid managed care services in Los Angeles. He completed his MBA studies at Pepperdine University in 1988.
Dr. Barnett graduated from UCLA School of Law in 1996 and since then has been a member of the California State Bar. From 1996 to 2004 Dr. Barnett’s law practice specialized in administrative appeals and litigating medical-legal matters before state and federal courts, including causes of action for medical malpractice, health care licensing, and contract disputes. During this time Dr. Barnett represented many individuals struggling with the medical, legal and financial challenges they experienced in the course of dealing with their cancer, or cancer in loved ones.
In 2004 Dr. Barnett returned to the full-time practice of medicine. From 2007 through 2019 he worked for the California Correctional Health Care Services in a variety of clinical, supervisory and advisory positions. Currently Dr. Barnett is a Medical Consultant reviewing the care provided to incarcerated individuals within California prisons and elsewhere to promote medical services that meet or exceed applicable community standards for best practices.