Dr. Karen Lisa Leider, MD

Hello! I currently work in the Continuity of Care/Palliative Care department, and don't feel alone if you don't understand what that means! There are two parts to my practice; the Continuity of Care portion takes care of people after they leave the acute care hospital who are too ill or weak to go directly home. I oversee patient's rehabilitation and ongoing medical care until they are well enough to go home and resume care with their regular primary care physician. The other part of my job is Palliative Care. I work in the hospital with a Palliative Care team (consisting of a nurse and social worker) to help patients and families with serious, advancing illness clarify their goals and treatment options. My training in Family Practice led me first to private practice in Santa Rosa, then to urgent care and quickly to Emergency Medicine. I worked in a small ED in east Santa Rosa (Warrack Hospital, for those of you who have lived in the area for a while) and worked there from 1986 until …it closed in 2006. It may seem unusual, but that wonderful experience prepared me for my current work. I found that some of my strongest skills were in communicating information to patients and families. I also enjoyed working with the predominantly elderly population that utilized Warrack Hospital. I was looking for a change from emergency medicine, and joined the Kaiser team in 2007. It has been a wonderful change; I enjoy belonging to an integrated medical system that allows me to use the skills I have developed over the past 28 years as a physician.

I am Board Certified in Family Practice

I am also Board Certified in Palliative Care and Hospice Medicine

Interests: Over the past 15 years I have spent much of my spare time helping promote music and the arts in our local public schools. Otherwise I spend as much time outdoors as possible; when indoors I love to cook and then EAT what I cook!

Family and Friends: I was born and raised in Livermore, California and attended UC San Diego for undergraduate work. Unbeknownst to me, my future husband was also at the same college at the same time; despite mutual friends, we never met. While I was in medical school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Medical College of Wisconsin, he was attending USC medical school with Kathy, a college friend of mine. She didn't think to introduce us when she learned we would both be attending the same residency, as she didn't think we would get along. We met at the Community Hospital of Sonoma County (now Sutter) Family Practice residency program and the rest is history. We invited Kathy to our wedding.

We have two great children. One is in high school in Forestville (Go Lions!) and the other attends UC Berkeley (Go Bears!). Our children do ask us not to discuss certain medical topics at the dinner table.