Dr. Allyson La Barbara was born in San Francisco and raised in Novato. After attending Marin Catholic High School she studied at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She then returned to San Francisco for two years of research at UCSF, where her work helped to better target chemotherapy agents to tumors. She remained at UCSF for medical school and then did her pediatrics residency at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
After residency, Dr. La Barbara worked as a hospitalist at San Francisco’s California Pacific Medical Center, where she cared exclusively for hospitalized and critically ill children. While she found this work deeply rewarding, after five years she realized she missed working more long term with families. She then transitioned to pediatric primary care at an integrative medicine clinic in Noe Valley. During this time, she also completed a year-long course in homeopathy, which she still enjoys using as a complement to traditional medicine.
In 2013, Dr. La Barbara was asked to return to UCSF as a primary care pediatrician and professor, a position she readily accepted. She spent five years in this role, developing close relationships with growing families and teaching medical students.
Dr. La Barbara is now thrilled to be part of Tamalpais Pediatrics and to serve her home community of Marin. Her areas of medical interest include nutrition, environmental health and development. She is also passionate about teaching and has been honored with teaching awards by both UCSF and Stanford medical students. She remains a UCSF Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics.
Dr. La Barbara lives in Novato with her husband and two daughters. She enjoys reading, traveling, and exploring the outdoors. As her husband and now her daughters are French citizens, she is also developing her French language skills.
Dr. La Barbara looks forward to seeing her patients in the office and around town and suspects that when parents see her out with her daughters they’ll feel reassured to know that pediatricians’ kids have tantrums, meltdowns, and selective hearing, too.
