From Brennan Dixson for the Pasadena Star-News: Dr. Ying-Ying Goh, Pasadena’s public health director and health officer, is set to take a one-year leave from her position after being selected as one of six participants in the 2022-23 class of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy fellows at the National Academy of Medicine.
Goh, a board-certified pediatrician who has been serving as the city’s health officer since 2015, will take a personal leave of absence beginning Aug. 22 until the completion of the one-year fellowship.
Interim City Manager Cynthia Kurtz is expected to announce an interim director and the city will begin recruiting for a limited-term health officer to replace Goh, who was named director of Pasadena Public Health Department in 2019.
Goh could not be reached for comment Thursday.
As the chief health officer for Pasadena Public Health, Goh guided the city’s response to the pandemic, one of few such public health department’s in the region. Locally, Pasadena, LongBeach and LosAngeles County run their own departments.
She’s known for overseeing a scrappy and small department that amid the pandemic punched above its weight with what historically had been a small budget with relatively few resources. Often, department actions ran counter to the broader direction at the county level, dictated by Pasadena’s own COVID-19 patterns. The department left outdoor dining open while other jurisdictions could not and collated more complete, accurate data sets faster than other agencies with more resources.
But her department also faced criticism at times. It came in the form of a public seething over what in the beginning of the pandemic was elusive testing and later berating over vaccines initially in short supply. Goh herself faced stinging criticism when the City Council repeatedly pushed for the city health department to buck county and state regulations and exercise local public health authority. Some questioned whether the city could have moved faster in the early days of the pandemic. Critics pointed fingers over whether the department fell short of the best response to deadly outbreaks in the city’s elder care facilities.
But she will depart a city with high vaccination rates. Thursday, 99.9% of Pasadena residents have received at least one vaccine dose and 93.3% have received two doses.
Prior to her appointment, Goh served as medical director for programs and research for the department, securing grant funding and managing programs related to diabetes care management and childhood obesity prevention, among others.
The fellowship Goh was selected to is one of the nation’s most prestigious learning experiences relating to health, science and policy in Washington, D.C,, city leaders said Thursday when announcing the coming departure.
“Since 1973, this nonpartisan fellowship has offered exclusive, hands-on policy experience with the most influential congressional and executive offices,” a news release said. “Over the years, more than 300 fellows from across the nation have worked hand in hand with the best and brightest in federal health policy to gain an insider’s perspective of the political process, develop unmatched leadership skills, and build a professional network that lasts a lifetime.”