Katherine Kaufer Christoffel

I was thinking about Kathy today for some reason, and unfortunately found that she had passed away. We were residents together at Children´s Memorial. Always a smiling face and a keen wit during some of those long nights on call. My condolences to the family.

I worked with Kathy when she was on our Steering Committee for the Chicago Infant Mortality Study. After which we became friends. She was such a wonderful person. I am so blessed to have known her. She was committed to reducing gun violence against children. When she retired, I wondered what she would do after working so many hours every day. She made the most of it, by traveling, reading, and thoroughly enjoying friends and exploring the east coast. She will be missed. Condolences to Kevin...

When I worked as a pediatric resident at CMH, I have a crystal clear memory of Kathy managing the care of a severely ill child. The diagnosis was rare and the treatment required complicated medical management and incredible patience and persistence in the belief that the child would recover. The child did recover and we all learned what it means to be a good physician. Thank you, Kathy, for that lesson. Catherine Lischwe

Kevin and Kim, my sincere condolences. I was lucky to interview Kathy for the Radcliffe Oral History Project in April of this year. She was an inspiration back in 1969 and ever after! Kevin, I'm so glad you were able to sit in on the interview, and discuss it afterwards. On June 2, 2023, for Harvard Alumni Day, we did a program about the Project both on zoom and in person, attended by hundreds, in which we talked about Kathy. I sent her the link, but I don't know if she had a chance to watch...

We shared many patients. Kathy accomplished so much as a doc and in her work on gun control. May her memory be a blessing to her family and all who loved her.

Kathy was one of my teachers as a resident at CMH, and colleague there for many years. Her accomplishments set the tone for AAP policies today. She was way ahead of her time. I will forever remember her smile, energy and passion. She was a perfect example of what a physician should be.

I was very lucky to have known and worked with Kathy for two decades. I was awed by her passion to lead change in many arenas of social injustice and the burdens falling on the poor and underprivileged. She successfully argued to establish child advocacy as a core mission of pediatricians and children´s hospitals. She loved teaching medical students and pediatric residents and many aspired to follow her examples. Children everywhere are better off for her career of vision, leadership, and work

I will forever be grateful to Kathy for bringing me to CMH and giving so much energetic support for my work. She was always ready to listen, to guide, to correct, and to find ways to help my career flourish. She once told me that she loved giving birth to organizational babies . . . seeding ideas and bringing in new and different skill sets that would spur, in time, significant change. With her extremely active mind and caring approach (I sometimes received a dozen emails a day when she was...