Passionate Care

Deep commitment to patient care earns Kate Treadway Trustees Medal

Kate Treadway, the Gerald S. Foster Academy Associate Professor of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, received the Trustees Medal, an occasional lifetime achievement award given by the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization for a doctor who has made a monumental and lasting impact on the institution and its physician community.

“Her name is the MGH synonym for unparalleled primary care. She brings to her extraordinarily fortunate patients an abundance of knowledge and experience tempered by wisdom, humor and radiant humanity. It takes only a single visit for a patient to see that she wants to understand both the technical and emotional aspects of their illness, and that nothing will stop her from giving to or getting for them the best that medicine has to offer,” said one of Treadway’s nominations for a past award.

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“She has always represented the essence of what it means to be a physician — to study and learn and dedicate yourself with passion to the pursuit of making every life you touch be as whole as it can be. She understands the needs of people at every stage of life, and she knows not only how to heal but also how to comfort and bring solace to people who are beyond our ability to heal in a conventional sense,” it said.

Treadway is known for her deep commitment to patient care, being an enduring advocate, and being a conscientious molder of the next generation of physicians dedicated to patient care.

She is a persistent and articulate voice for the sanctity of medical professionalism and the doctor-patient bond. She has also been an inspirational educator in the Introduction to the Profession and Patient-Doctor courses at HMS.

“What is always there beneath everything we do, as the deep steady heart beat of the MGH, is the profound commitment to our patients and the recognition that truly great medical care does not rest on treatment of the disease alone but on the care and attention to the person who has the disease. It is such an old notion, but one that in the hustle and bustle of our modern medical practice can easily become lost. Etched into the wall on the main corridor of the White Building is the phrase we all know by Francis Weld Peabody: ‘One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient,’” said Treadway in her acceptance speech.