04/16/2013

Board Member Spotlight—Dr. Gary Katz

Dr. Gary Katz wasn’t always interested in a career in medicine. There was a time when his greatest dream was piloting aircraft and seeing the world. During his college years, Dr. Katz studied for and earned his pilot’s license and enjoyed a brief period living out his dream of flying. However, Dr. Katz found the prospect of life in the cockpit unfulfilling; so one day while tooling about the clouds, he decided to make a change. Dr. Katz landed the plane and moved on to medicine.

Of course, this career switch wasn’t an easy one. There was very little overlap in the preparatory classes one takes for those two careers, so Dr. Katz had a lot of relearning to accomplish before medical school. He completed a Pre-Med curriculum at University of Cincinnati; He went on to earn his MD from University of Toledo (1998) and completed his residency at Summa Health System in Akron (2001). After residency and a few years of practice, Dr. Katz re-entered school to earn his MBA from The Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University (2005).

For two years in practice, Dr. Katz worked in Virginia on the faculty at EVMS before returning to Ohio. After nearly eight years at The Ohio State University, he moved on to work for Premier Physician Services where he currently serves as a medical director, a line physician and an instructor of patient-physician communication.

Dr. Katz doesn’t regret his career change for a second. Emergency medicine has given him the chance to impact so many more lives in such a meaningful way. He is honored to serve in the public health front-line. And in light of this week’s tragic events in Boston, Dr. Katz salutes all the Boston-area EM physicians, EMTs and first responders for serving so swiftly, professionally and honorably in the aftermath of the terrorist bombing. For Dr. Katz, events like the Boston bombing serve as a solemn reminder of how fortunate he feels to be a part of this extended family of EM colleagues.