About Us
Palliative Care Consultants of Santa Barbara (PCCSB) is a physician owned provider group that provides hospital, hospice, and outpatient based palliative care physician services to residents of the Santa Barbara County South Coast. Formed as a physician partnership in 2003, PCCSB has successfully led the creation of three successful, sustained community collaborations to meet the needs of the chronically ill and dying residents of the Santa Barbara Community. Through its partnerships with Cottage Health System, Visiting Nurse and Hospice Care, Hospice of Santa Barbara, the St. Francis Foundation, and the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara PCCSB serves approximately 3,000 of the sickest patients in the community. Additionally, the PCCSB physician owners also maintain three private practices in primary care Internal Medicine where they serve an additional 3000 community members, most of whom are seniors.
Our Mission
The overall mission of PCCSB is excellence in access, delivery, and patient/family experience in primary care, hospice, palliative care, and hospital settings. Our efforts have focused on patient centered care that also acknowledges the important role of family and community in the care of elderly and seriously ill patients. Our work has strived toward seamlessness across acute and community care settings with a strong emphasis on education and building sustainable, collaborative models of care.
What Sets Us Apart
PCCSB is perhaps uniquely situated to both understand the challenges of the frail elderly and implement solutions for the following reasons:
- Clinical expertise and experience straddling the disciplines of Palliative Care, Hospice, and Primary Care, and Geriatrics.
- PCCSB is the opposite of a silo model of healthcare delivery – it serves patients in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and homes giving a unique perspective on continuity challenges of healthcare delivery. PCCSB clinicians have a strong background and ongoing practice in Primary Care.
- Highly regarded and influential though out the local health care community. Our clinicians are on a first name basis with everyone from the hospital CEO to the nurse’s aides at home.
- Leadership positions in multiple key organizations, boards, and committees
- A track record of successful innovative collaborative planning and execution bringing disparate community organizations together to improve care and access for patients.
- An organizational model that is nimble and carefully managed
Business experience managing successful and sustainable medical practices and healthcare collaborations
Our Doctors
Michael Bordofsky, MD
Dr. Bordofsky practices Internal Medicine in Santa Barbara. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine as well as Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He has been a Medical Director for Visiting Nurse & Hospice since 1995 and helped create the very successful Palliative Care Consultation Service at Cottage Hospital. He has been honored for his teaching and is the managing partner for Palliative Care Consultants of Santa Barbara, a medical group that provides consultation, education, and clinical services in hospital, hospice, and community settings.
Michael Kearney, MD
Michael Kearney, MD, has spent over thirty years working as a physician in end-of-life care. He trained and worked at St. Christopher’s Hospice in London with Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement, and subsequently worked for many years as medical director of Our Lady’s Hospice in Dublin, and later with Professor Balfour Mount at McGill University in Montreal. He is currently a medical director of the Palliative Care Consultation Service at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital and an associate medical director at Visiting Nurse and Hospice Care, also in Santa Barbara. He teaches nationally and internationally and is the author of two popular books in the field Ð Mortally Wounded and A Place of Healing.
Natasha Marston, MD
Dr. Natasha Marston is Board Certified in Family Medicine as well as Hospice and Palliative Medicine. After medical school at UCLA and eventually a Palliative Medicine Fellowship with the Cedars-Sinai-West Los Angeles VA program, she has been enjoying her work as an Associate Medical Director for Visiting Nurse and Hospice Care of Santa Barbara and Serenity House since 2012. In addition to this role she enjoys the important work of raising her young son and nurturing her family and community.
Dennis H. Baker, MD
Dr. Baker has practiced Internal Medicine in Santa Barbara since 1987. He has served as a Medical Director of the Cottage Hospital Palliative Care Consultation Service since helping to found it in 2005. He is currently Medical Director and House Physician at Sarah House. Dr. Baker is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Palliative Medicine and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He serves on the Board of Hospice of Santa Barbara and as medical advisor for that organization. He is also a member of the Board of Casa Esperanza where he participates in the care of homeless members of the community. Dr. Baker is a Past-President of the Santa Barbara County Medical Society and is active on many committees at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
Eric P. Trautwein, MD
Dr. Eric Trautwein practices Internal Medicine in Santa Barbara. In addition to this, he serves as one the associate medical directors of the Palliative Care Consultation Service at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, and is an associate medical director for the Visiting Nurse and Hospice Care of Santa Barbara. He frequently serves as a clinical instructor with the Internal Medicine residency program at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. He is married to a fellow physician and together they share the happy task of raising two young daughters.