Meet Dr. Kate Worden…
- Dr. Kate was born in England, grew up in Anderson Indiana, received a BS in Microbiology at Purdue University in 1977, a MS in Virology from the University of Chicago in 1979, and a doctorate in Osteopathic Medicine (DO) from Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1988.
- Her medical student clinical training took place at Detroit Osteopathic (DOH) and Bi-County hospitals, her internship was at Riverside Osteopathic (ROH), and she completed her Family Medicine residency at Tucson General (TGH) hospital in 1991.
- She is board certified as an Osteopathic specialist in Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine/Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (NMM/OMM), Family Medicine, and Special Proficiency in Osteopathic Cranial Manipulative Medicine (OCMM) and earned a Fellowship of the American Academy Osteopathy (FAAO) in 2020.
- She is currently a Clinical Professor of OMM at Midwestern University Arizona College Osteopathic Medicine in Glendale, AZ and was a member of Dr. Andrew Weil’s inaugural faculty at the Integrative Medicine program at the University of Arizona.
- Kate was born in England while her Air Force dad helped guide logistics for the Berlin Airlift. She grew up the second of seven children. She worked her way through her BS in Microbiology at Purdue University as a Biology Coop student doing bench research at the USDA Northern Regional Research Lab in Peoria IL. This led to a National Science Foundation Grant to study at the University of Chicago where she received a MS in Virology doing even more sophisticated bench research. She then taught biology and biochemistry and initiated a new elective called “Nutrition for the 80s” at St. Joseph’s College. From there she went to medical school at Michigan State.
- She became Board Certified in Family Medicine in 1992 and joined a full scope family practice included obstetrics in Tucson for 6 years. She then transitioned to an integrated practice she named KateCare Osteopathic Center. There she saw patients for osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) and worked with practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture, Massage Therapy, Reiki, an Exercise Trainer, and a Nutritionist.
- She attended several early workshops on what would later be known as Functional Medicine and was the only DO mentioned in the forward of the first edition of the Functional Medicine textbook. The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) was started by Jeff Bland, PhD, himself the son of a DO who, applied the osteopathic principles he grew up with at home to the world of nutritional therapy and the biochemical science underlying it, e.g., Leaky Gut Syndrome, detoxification pathways, and neurodegenerative medicine to name a few.
- At the same time, she was invited to become one of the inaugural faculty for the University of Arizona Integrated Medicine program, headed by Andrew Weil, MD, the well-known author of Spontaneous Healing, based partly on his work with Robert Fulford, DO. After assisting Dr. Weil and his program, they were awarded a $5 million grant from NIH to initiate a Pediatric Integrated Medicine program. This included two research project that involved OMM for which she was the Biomechanical Core Director, one on children with cerebral palsy and one on otitis media (ear infections). They published the results of these studies in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine (JOM) and other journals in 2007. She relates that it was her honor to deliver the first AAO Academy Award to Dr. Weil, an award given to a non-DO who has made a substantial contribution to the Osteopathic profession.
- During this time, she became Board Certified as a specialist in Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine/Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (NMM/OMM) in 2001. For many years, she treated elite athletes from the University of Arizona, learning the types of injuries such athletes underwent in multiple sports.
- In 2005 she was invited to join the teaching faculty at the OMM Dept. at Midwestern University AZ College of Osteopathic Medicine (AZCOM), where she provided patient care, taught medical students, NMM and other OPTI associated residents, and serve as director of the OMM Scholars (Undergraduate Fellows) and the OMM Research Advisor for the OMM department.
- She received her 3rd Board Certification in Special Proficiency in Osteopathy in the Cranial Field (OCA) in 2012 with the publication of Inability to turn to the left in a 10-week-old infant (about abnormally shaped infant head [plagiocephaly] and wry neck [torticollis]. This credential allowed her to become an OCA course director and she created an elective Basic 40-hour OCA approved Cranial Course for students. It is now in its 10th year and most recently had an enrollment of 28, fully 1% of the second-year medical school class.
- She has been the AZCOM Site Director for the DO Touch.net Physician Based Research Network (PBRN) and the AZCOM OMM Research Advisor having involved several of her colleagues with her in the Clinical Trials on the Safety and Efficacy of OMT. She has served over 20 years on the Louisa Burns, DO, Osteopathic Research Committee (LBORC), research committee for the American Academy of Osteopathy (AAO), and on the Cranial Academy Research Committee.
- From 2017-2020 she completed a thesis on The Evidence Based Physiology of Somatic Dysfunction: A Primer for the Preceptors of Osteopathic Learners, and three case studies: When neck pain is not just a sore neck: an osteopathic approach to cervical dystonia secondary to ankylosing spondylitis from Crohn’s disease; Trigeminal neuralgia: an osteopathic approach; and An osteopathic approach to preadolescent nocturnal enuresis with associated behavior and coordination problems. This culminated in her being awarded a Fellowship of the American Academy of Osteopathy (FAAO) in 2020.
- During the Co-Vid pandemic in 2020-2021, she continued to teach an on-line OMM rotation to third and fourth-year medical students, but she had to suspend her treatment of patients due to a personal illness, being at high risk from a medical condition, and later to care for her wife, Judy, with advanced breast cancer. After 38 years together, Judy had a peaceful final transition in September 2022.
- Now that vaccinations and medical treatments have made the Co-Vid infection less life-threatening, Worden is returning to patient care on a much smaller scale. She continues to teach the hands-on skills of osteopathic medicine to medical students on Wednesdays but is now seeing patients in private practice two half-days per week at an office in her home.
- On a personal note, Dr. Kate enjoys cooking, spending time with friends, being outdoors, hiking Thunderbird Mountain, walking her Yorkies, Benji and Bindi, swimming, camping, and traveling. She enjoys playing her guitar and ukulele especially around a campfire.
Kate’s Corner Osteopathic Care, PLC
Welcome to a unique approach to caring for you as a whole person-- body, mind & spirit! From your first encounter with our New Patient Information form you will see that we are interested in getting to know you and assist you on your journey from pain relief to a deeper state of health. At Kate’s Corner of the world, artificial barriers, such as insurance companies and a disease model, give way to stepping stones on your way to a pathway to health as you are welcomed home.
Mission Statement
Our Mission is to provide the art and science of medicine and healing using the osteopathic philosophy and manual hands-on skills to patients to the best of our ability.
- Yes, this includes applied anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, energy, and even biophysics.
- Even more so, it includes skills in listening to your words, spoken & unspoken, your emotional heart, and the history of your lifetime written in the tissues of your body.
"An osteopathic physician's role is to find the health; anyone can find disease."
-- A.T. Still, Founder of Osteopathic Medicine
What is Osteopathic Medicine?
Osteopathic Medicine was founded in 1874 by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still in Kirksville, Missouri. Osteopathic physicians are fully licensed to practice the entire scope of medicine throughout the United States and internationally. Osteopathic physicians are currently practicing in a variety of fields, such as neurology, rheumatology, emergency medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, and orthopedic surgery, just to name a few.
The discipline of osteopathic medicine integrates knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and pathology as they relate to the whole body in health and disease. The practice of osteopathic medicine involves the evaluation of body functioning using visual, palpatory, and postural exam techniques. Osteopathic physicians perform a comprehensive physical assessment of the muscles and joints of the whole body, consider the full field of medical and surgical practice, and provide expertise in the area of osteopathic diagnosis and treatment.
Dr. Still was disappointed with the standard of medical care in his time and was outspoken against the harms of many of the medications of his age. Because of this, he sought to develop a new approach to patient care that was based on the understanding that the body has the capability for self-healing. With his extensive knowledge of human anatomy and rational approach to clinical problem-solving, he discovered that many ailments in his patients had corresponding restrictions in the body. The profession has named these restrictions "somatic dysfunction."
Correction of somatic dysfunction is the goal of osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) through precise hands-on treatments to regain local freedom of motion, reduction of pain, and integration of local movement with the whole of the body. Somatic dysfunction makes the body less efficient in how it uses energy, and the correction of somatic dysfunction can be thought of as the removal of "anchors." OMM is a method to improve the circulatory, lymphatic, and nervous system's transport of vital substances, which can help lift burdens on the body that may have been present for months or years.
Overall, stresses to the body can also influence the way it handles pain and can respond to injury with proper repair. Osteopathic physicians consider the importance of proper nutrition, rest, activity, and stress management in the whole-person care they provide. Patients are a unity of body, mind, and spirit in the osteopathic approach, and total health is supported in all of these areas.
While every D.O. is exposed to the philosophy and manual treatments of osteopathic medicine early in their training, not every D.O. has the time or consistent experiences necessary to provide the comprehensive OMM a patient may require. Osteopathic physicians can further their training to become board certified in Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine and Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (NMM/OMM) to fill this need. NMM/OMM specialists are rigorously trained and mentored to provide osteopathic care to patients of all ages with a wide variety of conditions.
Schedule an Appointment
Both new and follow-up appointments can be scheduled online by clicking the button below or by calling our office at
(480) 564-2905.