Gerry Lazzareschi, MD

Bio

I was born and raised in San Francisco, a first-generation American whose family migrated from Northern Italy. I moved across the Bay to UC Berkeley for my undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and immediately started working for Hewlett Packard in Silicon Valley. While a working engineer, I became interested in medicine consulting at Stanford Medical Center. I returned to UC Berkeley, obtained a Genetics Degree and finished my initial medical training at UC San Francisco. During that time I decided to do a residency in Emergency Medicine, primarily because it gave me the opportunity to see patients when they needed help most.

I finished my residency at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the Los Angeles area and began working for Kaiser Permanente immediately out of residency. I liked the philosophy of preventative medicine in an integrated system and have been with the Santa Rosa facility since we opened in 1990. In addition to my duties as an Emergency Physician I am also extensively involved with the development of Kaiser Permanente's computerized medical information system.

I have been married since 1982 and have two children: Danny, born in 1988 who is currently attending UC Berkeley, and Isabella, born in 1992 who is a tennis star at our local high school. Susan, my wife, is a professional photographer who specializes in black and white portraits of children and is, in her own right, an excellent tennis player. In my spare time I like to cycle, woodwork and follow my passion with regard to global warming; I run biodiesel automobiles and have installed solar panels on my home.

My Medical Specialty

More details about my specialty:

I chose Emergency Medicine as a specialty because it offered the widest breadth of medicine in both acuity and practice. It allows me great satisfaction knowing how to treat a variety of situations and illnesses and to be there when the patients really need someone in a hurry.

An interesting story from my training:

While in medical school in San Francisco, I experienced an incredible class in Parasitology. My instructor had experienced multiple eradication campaigns throughout the world and he inspired me so much that I decided to follow in his footsteps.

In my fourth year, I had the opportunity to move to Alexandria, Egypt and study parasitology. My wife got a job with a Peace Corp project doing statistics for chlamydia research in the Nile Valley. Chlamydia is a disease of the eye transmitted by flies and is endemic in that area. Although I had always known that medicine in the third world would be a far cry from my practice in the States, it was still unbelievable at times seeing what these poor people had to endure.

The hospitals were in such disrepair that windows were missing, walls were crumbling, and birds made their nests in the fluorescent light fixtures that had long since expired. There was no central cafeteria, so families would cook meals for their loved ones on propane stoves right next to patients on oxygen.

The children I treated were mainly victims of the parasite SCHISTOSOMIASIS, an organism with a complex life cycle involving fresh water rivers. It lives in the bladder and causes blood in the urine and is so omnipresent that one of the signs of adulthood is when you achieve bloody urination. Multiple eradication campaigns had been attempted to curb the spread of this disease but none had worked. Drugs for the treatment of this ailment exist, but the political infrastructure in Egypt was so poorly executed that the world aid given to Egypt did not often see its way down to this level.

I left the country with a much better understanding of what a third world population experiences on a daily basis.

Photos from My Training Years or of Practicing Medicine in My Field:

A Mother and Child to be Treated

One of the Wards

My Eqyptian Colleagues

Pyramids of Giza

Interests

Currently reading:
A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

Hobby Photos & Links:

My Podcasts

Family & Friends

People in my life:

Susan, my wife, is an accomplished photographer. We were married in Southern California in 1982. She keeps a pretty busy business going, specializing in children portraiture.

My children and people I care about:

Daniel, born in 1988, and Isabella in 1992, couldn't be more different if they were born to different families. Danny is very quiet and studious; not too outgoing but at the same time gregarious. Bella, on the other hand, has not yet found her stride in school but enjoys a variety of sports and instruments.

Photos of my Family & Friends:

Sunset in Tahoe

Family Picture

Danny and Isabella in Italy 2009

Molly and Bogart are two of the most lovable Golden Retrievers anyone could ever find. We obtained Molly in 2000 and then when her sister had a litter in 2003, we couldn't resist Bogart. Sure there is a lot of hair floating around the house, but they sure are worth it!

Pet Photos:

Molly is on the Left

Travel

Favorite place in the world:

I started spending time at Lake Tahoe in 1959 at the age of three when my parents discovered it. At that time I was living in San Francisco and the only way to get there was on a very dangerous two-lane road going through the Sierra. There was a large contingent of Italians that enjoyed the lake because it reminded them of the Northern Italian Alps and surrounding areas. We would stay at a resort on the North Shore known as Meeks Bay Resort. It features a beautiful half moon bay with clean white sand and pristine water.

Originally it consisted of a group of separate cabins on the Lake, a rustic log lodge, a grocery store, a small movie theater, an ice cream parlor as well as a dance hall and one of the few enclosed marinas on the Lake. We would spend 1 to 2 weeks there in one of the cabins. Some of the happiest moments of my childhood are from the time spent on Meeks Bay with my parents and siblings.

Since having children of my own, I have continued the tradition. Meeks Bay was threatened to be engulfed by Condo development mania in the '70's, but when the developers found out what the cost of pumping sewage out of the Tahoe Basin would be, they abandoned the effort.

At this point, Bill Hewlett of HP fame bought the land and, because of his philanthropic nature, gave the land to the US Forest Service. The Resort has been run by various individuals as a concession for the Forest Service, the latest and most successful being the Washoe Indian tribe.

Since my time spent there as a child, the beautiful lodge as well as the theater and many of the cabins were destroyed by fire, but the basic feeling at Meeks Bay remains the same as in the early 1900's--peace and tranquility.

One of my recent trips:

In 2003 I had the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica with my family. I had heard a great deal about the country, its high literacy rate as well as geographic beauty, and was anxious to see it and share it with the family. We took almost a month exploring three parts of the country: the central metropolitan area around San Jose, the northern volcanic region, and my favorite, the southern tip of Costa Rica consisting of the Corcodova Rain Forest Preserve. This is one of the most pristine rain forests in the world and still houses such rarities as jaguars.

We stayed almost a week in an eco-lodge in the rain forest right at the mouth of a large river. The floors of our hut were made from local tropical hardwoods and the walls were mostly open. The meals were an affair uniting all families and/or individuals staying at the lodge in a central open-air dining commons. While eating there, you could watch Toucans in the huge banyan trees as well as white-faced monkeys playing over the pools.

It was an amazing place to stay as the Costa Ricans are all uniformly hospitable and generous as well as intelligent. The Rain Forest offered long beaches on which the kids could play, walks through the rain forests and observation of spectacular wildlife. On one particular evening we were walking towards the pool through the thick vegetation when we were startled by a group of "Jesus Christ lizards." These lizards, known also as CHRISBALA CHERAPO BASILISK, are very large (one to two feet long) and run on their hind legs in an upright position. They are so fast that they can run on top of water (thus the nickname). A group of about 5 of these lizards crossed our path at a pretty fast clip which startled us immensely. Honestly, it looked like a scene out of a prehistoric thriller film!

A Photo of One of My Favorite Places:

Isabella Kayaking

Bella Playing on the Beach

A Picture of Myself in 1961

Trip Photos:

Kayaking Upstream

Dan on the Beach

An Active Volcano

Landing