Peter Barnett

MPA Fellows, Class of 2026

Attending Physician, The Root Center for Advanced Recovery

Peter is a 20-year veteran of clinical practice in emergency medicine, trauma, and critical care. Peter completed his training at the University of Connecticut/ Hartford Hospital and has since built a career practicing in critical access hospitals around the United States and Canada, and responding to natural disasters, endemics, epidemics, and pandemics around the world. Peter served on rapid response teams to the SARS, H1N1 swine flu, MERS, Ebola, and Covid outbreaks. Recognizing the continued frail state of public health infrastructure persisting post-pandemic, and the severe lack of resources invested in the social determinants of health, Peter recently changed his practice to addiction medicine to take the fight to the other silent epidemic tearing through our nation.

Prior to his medical career, Peter served as an officer in the US Coast Guard for 15 years. Peter served onboard a variety of ships and shore stations prosecuting the core Coast Guard missions of search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, maritime environmental protection, and national defense operations. In the early 1990’s, Peter deployed to Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm and spent several ensuing tours deploying to various hot spots around the world as a military intelligence and littoral warfare specialist. Several helicopter crashes and operational injuries later, Peter realized it may be time to change careers and so entered civilian life to pursue his career in medicine.

Peter received his Bachelor of Science from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1989 and his Doctor of Medicine from La Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara in 2002. He is board-certified with the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM), and his professional interests include addiction medicine, toxicology, critical care medicine, and medical education. In the realm of Public Administration, Peter has a keen interest in public-private partnerships and plans to utilize his education from the MPA Fellows program to leverage these relationships in the effort to improve public health infrastructure and emergency preparedness and response.