Just What The Doctor Ordered: White Sox Head Physician Kathy Weber Breaks Major League Baseball Barriers
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The days of pro sports being an all-boys club, off of the field, are long gone.
A woman has been making house calls on the South Side for quite a while now. As CBS 2's Megan Mawicke reports, she's just what the doctor ordered.
Dr. Kathy Weber hit a grand slam in 2004 as the first female head physician in Major League Baseball when the Chicago White Sox hired her. Now one of three women in the big leagues, the significance is not lost on her.
"It's funny. I really didn't think about it. I was just so excited about being involved with a professional team," Weber said. "Now I look back and I think why wasn't it more of a standard than me having to be the first one to do it?"
Dr. Weber, with Midwest Orthopedics at Rush, splits time at the Sox for about 25 home games, along with the Chicago Bulls and DePaul athletes.
"She's just been outstanding," said Sox General Manager Rick Hahn "Guys trust going to her, trust her opinion and my own family has visited her on a couple of occasions for some ailments because she's the best."
Pressure comes with the job, making sure multi-million dollar athletes are healthy. But nothing like being on-call when Sox pitcher Danny Farquhar suffered a brain aneurysm in the dugout last season.
"With Danny, I was on the phone to the ER immediately, making sure that I had a sense of what was wrong with him when I heard," Weber said. "So I wanted to make sure everybody who was supposed to be there was there, so we could make it go as smooth as possible."
A mother of two young sons, Dr. Weber can work up to 90 hours a week. But it's all worth it to her.
"I love taking care of people. If I can help somebody feel better, do better, I am going to do it," she said.
