With the advent of St. Luke’s Hospital becoming California Pacific Medical Center’s fourth campus, the highly knowledgeable and dedicated medical staff at St. Luke’s has been augmented by the establishment of a premier Cardiovascular Center and its new Chief of Cardiology, Edward Kersh, MD.

History of Caring
Six years ago, a group of doctors at St. Luke’s approached Kersh and asked if he would be willing to set down new roots in the Mission.  Why would a physician who is board certified in cardiology and internal medicine and a member of California Pacific Medical Center’s (CPMC) Cardiology Department for 25 years, with a thriving practice and teaching commitments as a Clinical Professor at UCSF, find such a move attractive? The answer lies in the fact that Kersh perceived the chance to participate in the creation of a state-of-the-art cardiology environment for St. Luke’s diverse community as a unique professional and personal opportunity.  He answered their call and has not looked back, in part because it helped fulfill the goal he made as a young man: to help people very much like his own family of origin.

Kersh’s interest in cardiology originated from the tragedy that befell his mother’s family when her father died of heart attack at age 49 during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. “It took my family two generations to fully recover from this setback,” Kersh explains. “My mother could not go to college. She had to go to work to help support the family. She and my father, who owned a small business, taught me not only how to work hard and sacrifice, but also the importance of commitment and education.” 

Making the Move
With this background, Kersh relates easily to the working-class people of the St. Luke’s Hospital neighborhood. “These are people who consider going to the doctor as last on their ‘to do’ list and are often predisposed to developing diabetes and heart disease,” he says.  “They require not only aggressive preventive care to stave off disease, but also expert acute care as well. I don’t want to see what happened to my family happen to other families.”

Kersh began his cardiology practice at San Francisco General Hospital in 1974.  “This is where I first met many of the physicians who are now at St. Luke’s,” he recalls. “At General, they were residents or instructors in the Family Practice program and re-connecting with them at St. Luke’s adds to my sense of coming home.”

Being more inclined to clinical practice than academics, Kersh left SF General in 1980 and established himself at CPMC, ultimately becoming a partner in a large cardiology practice. In June 2000, he added working part-time as a consultant at St. Luke’s to his schedule. In 2003, he organized a Cardiology training program at St. Luke’s and soon after was appointed chief of the division. In 2005, with the opening of the Cardiovascular Center, driven by an infusion of $6.4 million from Sutter Health, Kersh’s transition to St. Luke’s was complete.

Although he still works one day a week at his CPMC office to accommodate those patients who have transportation constraints and attends hospitalized patients at CPMC, Kersh notes that most of his established patients from CPMC travel across town to see him at his new office. In addition to this caseload, his new patient volume has increased nearly 50 percent. The fact that many of these new patients are Spanish speaking is not an issue. “I only speak medical Spanish,” states Kersh, “but patients nearly always arrive with a family member to interpret, and most of my office staff is bilingual.” 

In today’s fast-paced world of healthcare, Kersh has found new inspiration. “At St. Luke’s, every day I feel like I have accomplished something, either while caring for patients, helping to train students or implementing new programs and the latest technologies,” he says. “Plus I think I have the greatest staff around.”

To learn more about cardiac services at St. Luke’s Hospital, please click here or contact the St. Luke’s Cardiovascular Center at 415-641-6640.