When it comes to growth and development at Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine — overseeing expansions, recruiting award-winning faculty, making capital purchases and figuring out what’s next for the nearly 100-year-old institution — Cathy Kowalewski plays an instrumental role in making it happen.
As administrator of Wilmer Eye Institute, Kowalewski is involved with, as she puts it, “anything and everything,” while keeping in mind her goal of providing top-quality service to patients. “It’s a very rewarding role to play,” she says.
Kowalewski always looks for opportunities to improve, and can often be found walking around Wilmer’s main campus in East Baltimore talking with some of the more than 650 employees or many patients to take stock of what’s going on. “I want it to be a nice place for people to not only come as patients, but for us to work as employees,” she says.
While Kowalewski has been Wilmer’s administrator since 2015 — and the first female administrator at Wilmer — it’s not her first chapter at the institute. She was at Wilmer from 1999–2012, serving as an administrative manager and an assistant administrator, before taking roles as director of ambulatory services at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and then administrator of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Department of Dermatology. When Wilmer’s previous administrator, Richard Thomas, announced his retirement, Wilmer director Peter J. McDonnell called Kowalewski and suggested that she return to Wilmer in the administrator role.
For Kowalewski, it was not a difficult decision. “My heart is really with Wilmer,” she says. “Coming back to Wilmer was like coming back home.”
Recruitment is one of Kowalewski’s favorite parts of her job. “I really enjoy talking to prospective faculty and trying to relay to them why Johns Hopkins and Wilmer can be a great place for their career,” she says.
Some of the work Kowalewski is most proud of includes overseeing the expansion of Wilmer’s satellite locations in Maryland, including Green Spring Station, Bethesda, Columbia and Frederick in recent years. Growing the facilities has enabled Wilmer to provide more services for patients, such as its same-day appointment program, which has grown to accommodate about 1,100 same-day appointments each month.
A key to her success, Kowalewski says, is the team that works around her. “Figuring out how to delegate has been important, but I think the best thing about my job is the team that I have at Wilmer,” she says. “They are the reason I come to work every day. My team is amazing.”
Those who work with Kowalewski echo similar sentiments. Rahul Shah, Wilmer’s assistant administrator, says Kowalewski always takes time to listen, offer support and contribute to solutions, no matter how busy her own schedule may be. He says Kowalewski’s dedication to the success of colleagues has inspired a culture of teamwork at Wilmer that is distinguished as one of the strongest within Johns Hopkins Medicine. “Her level of engagement and advocacy on behalf of — and all throughout — Wilmer Eye Institute extends well beyond the role of a traditional executive,” he says. “She leads with compassion, confidence, unparalleled depth and breadth of knowledge, adept relationship-building across all levels of the organization, keen attention to performance and — rather well-matched for ophthalmology — clarity of vision for Wilmer’s present and future.”
A worldly influence
As a member of various ophthalmology trade organizations, Kowalewski helps spread Wilmer’s influence worldwide.
Last year, she was named president of the executive board at the World Association of Eye Hospitals, the global association of eye hospitals and eye departments of general hospitals. In this role, Kowalewski travels the world to learn how other eye hospitals work and to share best practices. “It’s been amazing to see how other hospitals do things, and sometimes it’s quite different than we do here in the U.S.,” she says. “It’s been really interesting and eye-opening for me.”
Maaike van Zuilen, global lead of WAEH, says Kowalewski is a good fit for the role because she is intelligent and sympathetic, she thinks outside the box and she’s able to connect the WAEH with leaders in ophthalmology. “She is the leader you would like to work for,” she says. “She’s always encouraging and inspiring.”