Steven M. Katz, M.D., B.S.’76

Understanding Ideas and Facts

By Amy Halloran, B.A.’90

Steven M. Katz is an anesthesiologist at Christiana Health Care System in Delaware. He specializes in obstetric anesthesia.

A math major and physics minor, Katz was very much influenced by his math professors at the University at Albany. “My math training has always made me think about my assumptions about things and try to avoid memorization as a way of learning,” he says. Instead, Katz sought to understand ideas and facts. That approach shaped his pre-med education at Columbia University and his study of medicine at Hahnemann University, which is now a part of Drexel University.

Katz also found value in other courses he took. Film classes with Arthur Lennig gave him a lifelong love of the movies. A class with Richard (Doc) Sauers, then head coach of the men’s basketball team, gave him perspective on, and an appreciation for, the game.

Katz and his sister, Judith, established the Edith and Otto Katz Scholarship at the University. “Neither of my parents went to college, but they made it possible for us to go. So we thought it would be a fitting tribute to them to create a scholarship in their honor,” Katz says.