Clara grew up in Northern New Jersey and Spain. As an undergraduate pre-medical student, she learned about Osteopathic Medicine through Dr. Charles Steiner. She graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers College, then went on to attend the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, N.J. and earned her osteopathic medical license in 1996. She was taught Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine by one of the most well-respected and knowledgeable female osteopathic pioneers, Dr. Eleanor Masterson, a PCOM graduate of the Class of 1957.
After medical school, she enrolled in an AOA-approved rotating osteopathic internship year at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. where she studied various medical specialties and learned more hands-on medicine. During those years, she had the opportunity to rotate with Drs. Mary Bayno and Zinaida Pelkey, two well-known/respected osteopaths, leading experts in Osteopathy In the Cranial Field, during her elective time.
In July 1997, Clara entered a three-year Emergency Medicine Residency Program at Albert Einstein-Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N. Y. While at LIJ, Clara received the Izzy Segal Humanitarian Award. She has been Board-Certified in Emergency Medicine since 2001. Throughout her career as an Emergency Physician, not only was she doing osteopathic manipulation on patients, but also on her co-workers and family members. She continued to attend OMM courses at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford, Maine, went to the American Academy of Osteopathy and American Osteopathic Association yearly conferences, and took courses in Osteopathy In The Cranial Field with The Osteopathic Cranial Academy and at Dr. Viola Frymann’s Osteopathic Center for Children in San Diego, California.
After 19 years of practicing Emergency Medicine and observing the reality of practicing acute care during an opioid epidemic, she decided she wanted to further her interests in non-opiate pain management, and have a more positive influence on chronic conditions through the study and application of Applied Osteopathy. In 2018, she enrolled in a one-year Plus One Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine Fellowship at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and worked in both a Pain Clinic and a Family Practice office under Dr. Stephen Kisiel and his excellent team, including Dr. Andrew Goldman. She took a Percussion Hammer course with students of Dr. Robert Fulford and courses in the Bio-dynamic Model of Osteopathy in The Cranial Field with Drs. James Jealous and Stephen Kisiel.
She is a member of the American Academy of Osteopathy, the American Osteopathic Association, The Cranial Academy, and New York State Osteopathic Medical Society.
She has been in the Upstate New York area since 2002. She continues to work part-time in Emergency Medicine at Ellis Hospital’s Medical Center of Clifton Park and Albany Medical Center/Saratoga Hospital’s Malta Medical Emergent Care.
In her spare time, Clara loves to spend time with her family, ride her road bike throughout the region, cook food from all around the world, dance, travel, and visit her family in Spain.