Dr. Gary Greensweig, who brought doctors together to help reshape Sonoma County's health care system over the past three decades, is stepping down as chief medical officer at St. Joseph Health and leaving Santa Rosa.
Greensweig, a gentleman doctor known for his warm disposition and his trademark bow tie, will become chief physician executive for Dignity Health, a San Francisco company that operates the nation's fifth-largest network of hospitals.
For Greensweig, 61, who thought he would never leave Sonoma County, these last few days have been filled with a sense of surrealism and disbelief.
"It's an intense feeling of gratefulness to all the persons in this community -- the hospital and physicians and patients -- who have let me be part of their lives for the last 33 years," he said. "That's what I really feel."
Working out of Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, Greensweig will focus on moving Dignity Health toward a more integrated model of health care delivery, a key goal during his tenure with St. Joseph Health.
Today is his last day at Memorial Hospital, and next month, he begins his new job at Dignity Health, which manages 40 hospitals and employs 55,000 people in California, Arizona and Nevada.
As chief medical officer of St. Joseph Health in Sonoma County, the scope of Greensweig's duties went beyond the Santa Rosa hospital. He was medical officer for all St. Joseph medical services in the county, including the provider's many urgent care centers, outpatient services and physical therapy.
"He's a consummate liaison between the medical staff and the administration of the hospital," said Dr. Jan Sonander, a private-practice physician in Santa Rosa and Memorial Hospital's chief of staff.
Sonander, who has known Greensweig for 23 years, said his "consistent demeanor has really allowed for dialogue and resolution of conflicts."
After completing his residency, Greensweig moved to Santa Rosa in 1979 and began his family care practice. In the mid 1980s, he began wearing his iconic bow ties, a decision born more of practicality than fashion.
He learned doctors' ties often carried germs and that the white powder once used to coat the inside of doctors' gloves would inevitably end up on his tie.
"I found that my tie was always in patients' faces as I was examining them," he said.
Since the mid-1980s, Greensweig has honed his skills in medical group management.
Greensweig helped build Cherry Street Medical Group, which merged with other local physician groups in 1994 to create Primary Care Associates, the largest group of primary care doctors on the North Coast at the time. Four years later, it partnered with Memorial Hospital to create St. Joseph Health Foundation of Northern California.
"He was very involved in trying to bring physicians together to integrate care," Sonander said.
Greensweig has served as chief of staff and member of the Board of Trustees of Memorial Hospital; founding medical director of St. Joseph Health's mobile health clinic; assistant clinical professor in family and community medicine at UC San Francisco Medical Center; member of the board of directors of the Pacific Foundation for Medical Care; and president and CEO of St. Joseph Health Foundation of Northern California.
Kevin Klockenga, CEO of St. Joseph Health's five-hospital Northern California region, said in a staff memorandum last month that Greensweig's work "profoundly shaped St. Joseph Health and our Sonoma County ministry" and that he will be greatly missed.
Greensweig said he and his wife have recently found a home in Half Moon Bay, where they will be closer to his daughter's family. He said the things he's most proud of during his time in the North Bay are the enduring relationships he's forged with an "an entire community of patients and caregivers over many years."
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