Catharina is an Emergency Physician who is joining the fellowship after completing her residency in Emergency Medicine at Los Angeles County & University of Southern California Residency and medical school at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Her medical training has fostered a particular interest in how climate change affects the health of traditionally underserved communities. Her efforts have been aimed at raising awareness of climate change as a health emergency and social justice issue. She has helped develop a climate change elective curriculum for EM residents worldwide, contributed to a literature review article aimed at improving heat stroke management in the ED, and spearheaded multiple publications on managing pathologies affected by climate change.
Prior to her fellowship, Catharina was involved in various local healthcare sustainability initiatives and helped establish the sustainability committee at one of the largest public hospitals in the U.S. She is a member of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and serves as vice chair of the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA) where she founded and leads the Climate Change and Health Subcommittee, focused on increasing awareness of climate change impacts on health among EM residents and medical students.
As a physician in Los Angeles, Catharina witnessed the worst heat waves and wildfires in Southern California’s history, which put an already overburdened healthcare system under immense strain during the COVID-19 pandemic. This experience motivated her to explore ways in which healthcare facilities could improve their ability to cope with climate events such as tropical storms, floods, heat waves, and wildfires. During her fellowship, she intends to focus on health systems resiliency and preparedness, with a particular focus on mitigating the health impacts of climate change on communities that are disproportionately affected.