Mountain Hawk Heroes: TFXC Alums Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel & Jonathan Wetzel

Every Wednesday, Lehigh Athletics, Lehigh Valley Health Network and Coordinated Health is proud to recognize a Mountain Hawk Hero - someone associated with Lehigh Athletics who is making a difference in the medical field. We continue today with a pair of heroes, track and field/cross country alums Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel '09 and Jonathan Wetzel '09.

Previous Mountain Hawk Heroes
June 24: Robert Bonow (Men's Basketball Alum)
June 17: Morgan Decker (Softball Alum)
June 10: Jim Guzzo (Former Quarterback)
June 3: Amina Affini (Women's Basketball Alum)
May 27: Natalie Krane (Women's Soccer Alum)
May 20: Tricia Klein (Women's Golf Assistant Coach)

By: Justin Lafleur, Lehigh Sports Communications

The field of medicine demands a team effort, a constant give-and-take by not only the doctors and nurses, but also the numerous administrative professionals who work behind the scenes.

Success in medicine demands strong relationships as well.

Both former Lehigh cross country and track and field student-athletes, Jonathan Wetzel '09 and Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel '09 are a team in more ways than one. They're not only married, but they're also making a difference in patients' lives in their own valuable ways.

The impact of medical professionals has only been amplified since the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for the two of them who work in what was the epicenter of the crisis – New York City.

Let's delve into their story…

Setting The Stage
Jonathan and Kimberly were interested in medicine from a fairly young age.

Jonathan Wetzel and Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel — Following Kimberly's Medical School Graduation

"I had planned to try medical school, so that was in my plans even before coming to Lehigh," said Scotto-Wetzel. "Jonathan's parents were both dentists, so he was also interested in doing something health care related."

The two were on their own paths to Lehigh, then they met each other as members of the Lehigh track and field program.

"We spent a lot of time together," said Scotto-Wetzel. "I was a biology major and Jonathan majored in neuroscience, so we overlapped with a lot of classes, and we were obviously seeing each other every day at practice. We developed a friendship, were study partners and remained friends throughout college before starting to date as seniors.

"I always joke that he eventually wore me down."

Flash forward to today, and neither of the two are worn down by their jobs.

In fact, it's quite the opposite. They are as energized as ever before.

Primary Care Provider
Wetzel and Scotto-Wetzel both work with the Mount Sinai Health System, Kimberly as a primary care provider.

"I work in an outpatient office owned by Mount Sinai," she said. "I'm a general internist for adults, so I see patients 18 and older for routine medical care, follow up with chronic health conditions, yearly check-ups, sick visits… you name it."

After graduating Lehigh, Scotto-Wetzel attended medical school at St. George's University (Grenada, West Indies), graduating in 2013.
Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel

"I then did my residency at Lenox Hill Hospital, which is in Manhattan, but a different system from where we work now," said Scotto-Wetzel. "Jonathan was working at Lenox Hill Hospital as well and on the day I found out I had matched there, he was offered a job at Mount Sinai.

"Eventually, after I graduated from my residency program and was looking at different positions, I found this office location. A previous coworker who was working there said it was a good environment, which led me to apply."

That was 2016. Scotto-Wetzel has been practicing in her current role ever since.

Over the years, she's faced a number of challenges (like any medical professional), but not much compares to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I wasn't on the front lines in the hospital, but rather trying to keep patients out of the hospital and keep them home if appropriate," said Scotto-Wetzel.

During the pandemic, Kimberly's office had shifted to a primarily telemedicine model.

"For a lot of the primary care offices, Mount Sinai transitioned to telemedicine, video consults and seeing patients remotely so we could minimize contact and prevent unnecessary travel," she said. "I had a few in-office hours, but not many patients were coming in during March and April – appropriately so.

"We had such a quick rise in cases that my days were basically a combination of patients calling because they were sick, quite possibly with COVID, and figuring out how to treat their symptoms, reassuring them and explaining what to look out for."

Another often overlooked byproduct of COVID-19 has been mental health.

"This situation has been really hard on everyone in the country, but especially New Yorkers who are generally very active people and used to being out and about," said Scotto-Wetzel. "A lot of my patients have dealt with anxiety, feeling depressed and isolated. Telemedicine has been a good way to help oversee mental health as well."

Thankfully, the pandemic has improved in New York (and the Northeast as a whole). Kimberly knows it's far from over, but she's glad to get back to a semblance of normalcy.

"As of now, I'm in my office two days per week and working remotely three days a week," she said. "It's been good to be back in person because we can't do everything remotely. We're taking a lot of precautions to keep patients safe, making sure there's spacing between appointments, making sure no one's in the waiting rooms and we have enough time to sanitize the rooms in between.

"We are easing back in, but it's definitely still very different than February."

Combining A Pair Of Passions
While Kimberly is excelling as a physician, her husband Jonathan is combining two passions and areas of strength – medicine and business.

"I am a senior director of network development and international business development at the Mount Sinai Health System," said Wetzel. "These days, my work is predominantly focused on building strategic, long-term relationships with hospitals, health care systems and other related health care entities outside the United States."

At Lehigh, Wetzel was a behavioral neuroscience major then went on to earn his MBA in healthcare management at Union Graduate College in Schenectady, New York.
Jonathan Wetzel

"Being able to have that really deep understanding of science, coupled with business and healthcare administration, allows me to bridge a lot of gaps one may see in a health care management career and also, between administration and clinical leadership," said Wetzel. "While I may not understand all of the clinical elements in a presentation, I have a basic understanding of the science. It allows me to have much more informed conversations with my clinician peers."

Boiled down to its core, Wetzel and his team help bring quality health care to people around the world.

"My team helps existing hospitals, health systems, provider groups or investors interested in building new hospitals or health care systems," he said. "We serve as their consultants. In almost every single instance, we provide quality and patient safety advisory services. We've been involved in new hospital development projects in places as far away as Kazakhstan, where we were involved in some initial planning for a new hospital.

"We are bringing the best of the Mount Sinai Health System – a preeminent health care provider – to populations who otherwise may have never had access to such high quality services."

Access to quality health care is especially important in a pandemic.

"While we're in very unfortunate global circumstances, it's also an opportunity to have a greater impact," said Wetzel. "International corporations need assistance these days with respect to pandemic response planning, infection protection protocols, quality, patient safety and managing or thinking through strategies of how to help their own employee population stay safe.

"I see this as an opportunity to continue helping people around the globe in many ways, like we already are, but perhaps even more."

Connected Through Lehigh
Wetzel and Scotto-Wetzel are connected in a number of ways.

1) They're married.
2) They work in the same health system.
3) They also share the Lehigh student-athlete experience
Jonathan Wetzel and Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel

"Being a student-athlete is a challenge many people won't understand unless they've been one themselves, let alone at a preeminent university like Lehigh," said Wetzel. "I believe as a three-season athlete at the DI level, having to perform in the classroom firstly and on the track and cross country course, helped mold me into who I am today."

While at Lehigh, Wetzel served as a captain, learning and developing skills he uses to this day.

"Today, I still key off many experiences from my late teens and early twenties, and it helps me see things through a very different lens," he said. "The student-athlete experience has really benefited both of us, including from a time management perspective – having to go to class, lab and practice, and fit in some time to eat in between. Then, do homework, shower, rinse and repeat.

"That experience sets you up for the real world because work life isn't much different."

Kimberly's work as a primary care provider is very much like being on a team.

"I always tell my patients I'm not there to boss them around and tell them what to do. I'm there to give my medical opinion and help them as their 'teammate' take care of their health," she said. "I want to help them feel better and be healthier."

The busy schedule at Lehigh helped Scotto-Wetzel balance medical school demands and residency.

"We'd often work 80 hours a week, which was common between class, labs, practice and meets on the weekends," she said. "We were used to putting in long hours, and it's paying dividends today."

Today, those long hours could come in many different shapes and forms.

As Jonathan said, "No pun intended, but you need to have endurance for a job in health care. Maybe it comes a little easier to us as runners. In my case, it's a little different than Kim seeing patients. It could be taking an overnight flight to China, jumping off the plane, getting changed, going to meetings all day then in one recent example, hopping back on a plane to go home to the U.S. approximately 24 hours later.

"You need to have some mettle to get through this, but it's humbling."

The Value Of Relationships
Another humbling aspect of medicine is relationships.

"Relationships are everything in what I do," said Wetzel. "If you approach a relationship in a transactional way and there's no real substance, that's a quick recipe for failure. In the part of health care administration I'm doing, you really need to have people skills, teamwork and team building skills to get along, succeed and help the organization succeed."
Jonathan Wetzel and Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel

While at Lehigh, Jonathan and Kimberly learned how to work with teammates and develop relationships (including their own).

"Kim was one of those unofficial leaders who teammates looked to and confided in," said Wetzel.

That has continued today, with patients confiding in her as part of the special patient-doctor relationship.

Even when working virtually in the era of the pandemic, relationships continue to be important in every aspect of medicine.

"At the beginning of the COVID crisis hitting New York, our team and Mount Sinai International – because of our strong relationships abroad – was able to very quickly shift and work with our partners abroad to help our health system, by bringing in PPE (personal protective equipment) and ventilators," said Wetzel. "For a period of time, we were coordinating that type of work in partnership with our peers in operations, strategic planning, finance and across the health system. Being asked overnight to assist with procurement (obtaining goods) for the health system was a really humbling experience. I'd like to think we really helped Mount Sinai get the materials it needed in a time it most needed them."

Something like that could only happen because of the strong relationships already in place, which Wetzel has helped foster.

"The work we do within Mount Sinai International is focused on the long term," he said. "We're building partnerships or affiliations, not for a one-week or one-month engagement. We're doing these for five, 10, maybe more years. There needs to be a strong element of commitment on both sides.

"It's like marriage… There's got to be give and take."

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Mountain Hawk Heroes: TFXC Alums Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel & Jonathan Wetzel

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