Public Relations in Health Care

KATHLEEN LAREY LEWTON, has 25 years of experience as a public relations executive and is currently senior vice-president of Porter/Novelli’s Chicago office and codirector of the agency’s national health care practice. In 1989 she was profiled in Working Woman as one of the two ＂key people making news in hospital marketing.＂Ms. Lewton began her communications career at age 18 as a reporter and editor for The Daily Pantagraph, a daily newspaper in her hometown of Bloomington, Illinois, where she worked while she was a student at Illinois Wesleyan University (BA, English, 1970). From 1971 to 1976, she was assistant director of public relations at Bowling Green State University.After earning a master’s degree in journalism from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1977, she was named director of public relations at Flower Hospital in Sylvania, a Toledo suburb. In 1982, she joined the staff of St. Vincent Medical Center, an 840-bed tertiary care hospital, as vice-president for marketing communications. She earned a master’s degree in hospital administration from the University of Minnesota in 1988.During 1989, Ms. Lewton’s consulting firm, K.L. Lewton and Associates, worked with a variety of national and regional clients in health care, insurance, and professional association industries. From 1990-91, Ms. Lewton was vice-president for marketing and corporate communications at University Hospitals of Cleveland, and in 1992 she joined the senior management team at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, where she served as senior vice-president for marketing and public relations. In 1993 she was named to her present position at Porter/Novelli, a national public relations agency that is the lead U.S. agency for the international Omnicom organization. She is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America and was one of the youngest individuals ever inducted into the College of Fellows, which she now serves as a member of the Executive Commi