Richard P. Kratche MD, FAAFP

Dr. Richard Kratche is the Founding Program Director for Dignity Health East Valley Family Medicine Residency Program, which is based at Mercy Gilbert Medical  Center. Dr. Kratche joined Dignity Health in 2020 and has enjoyed working with Dignity Health Medical Group, as well as private practice physicians at Mercy Gilbert and Chandler Regional Medical Centers.  

Dr. Kratche has worked to create an innovative training program that aims to become a new national model for training Family Medicine physicians. 

Dr. Kratche grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended college at Harvard University, graduating with honors in 1983, followed by medical school at Ohio State University. He completed his Family Medicine residency at Overlook Hospital, Summit, New Jersey where he was concurrently a fellow at Columbia University.  

Following completion of his graduate medical education, Dr. Kratche returned to Cleveland where he practiced Family Medicine for 25 years, the last 20 with the Cleveland Clinic. He was its first Family Medicine physician, served as its founding Family Medicine Department Chair, and then became Medical Director of its Solon Family Health Center. Dr. Kratche also served as Project Director and then Medical Director of Cleveland Clinic's 200,000-square-foot Twinsburg Family Health and Surgery Center. Dr. Kratche was involved in the development of Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner College of Medicine and served on its admissions committee. 

In 2015, Dr. Kratche left Cleveland to become Iora Health's Medical Director for Arizona.  For five years, he oversaw the growth of Iora in Arizona practices, representing more than half of Iora's business throughout 10 states.