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Total Health Questionnaire: Kathy Gerwig

Kathy Gerwig is Kaiser Permanente’s Vice President of Employee Safety, Health & Wellness, as well as the organization’s  Environmental Stewardship Officer.

Kathy Gerwig
Kathy Gerwig

Q: In a few words, what does Total Health mean to you?
A: Having joy and meaning in one’s life, enhanced by good health.

Q: What’s your first health-related memory?
A: 
As kids, my brother and I played in a desert. He came down with Desert Fever and I didn’t. That’s when I became aware of his vulnerable immune system, and the courage it takes to live with a disability.

Q: Which person, living or dead, is your health hero or role model?
A: 
My father was a surgeon who got a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for service in WWII because he kept operating on wounded soldiers while the hospital he ran was being bombed. Throughout his career, he was all about the patients.

Q: What is your favorite food?
A: 
Environmentally sustainable sushi.

Q: What do you value most in your work? What inspires you to continue?
A: I get to work with smart, caring, passionate visionaries who are driven to serve others.

Q: If you could change one thing in health care, what would it be?
A: Less politics. More compassion.

Q: Where would you most like to live?
A: 
Where I live now, the San Francisco Bay Area.

Q: What do you consider your greatest achievement so far?
A: Capturing the stories of lots of my heroes in the book “Greening Health Care, How Hospitals Can Heal the Planet.”

 

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