In celebration of Women’s History Month, we took a moment to chat with one of CMC’s co-founders, Kam McCallum-Gesher (left in photo above). Kam was with Sally Savitz and Gabriella Heinsheimer (right in photo above) in 1991 when they began the mission of Charlotte Maxwell Clinic, the radical idea of providing free integrative care to low-income women with cancer.
Kam recalls those early days, “We were all concerned about healthcare access and how limited it is to do holistic supplementary, complementary medicine for people who are doing chemotherapy and a lot of radiation, especially women of color who get lost. So we worked hard to get a clinic started. It took us a couple years, and I was one of the original massage therapists. I was on the board for at least six years and was president for three. We did all kinds of things to raise money for the clinic. In the beginning it was like, ‘Okay, the PG&E bill is $5.36; who can pay it?’ So we started out on a shoestring.
“One of the women that I worked with was diagnosed with cancer and was told she’d have seven months to live. She lived eight years and had good quality of life. And she said it was because of the clinic. We get a lot of women saying that we’ve made a critical difference in their recovery and in their quality of life.”
Service has been a part of Kam’s life since she was a teenager when she heard President John Kennedy say, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” She joined the Peace Corps, and to this day, says still smiles remembering her years in Ethiopia.
At 83, Kam continues to volunteer at CMC. As one CMC staffer says, “Having founded the clinic 32 years ago, it’s amazing that Kam is providing guided imagery for clients, doing telehealth, making the time for them, and just bringing such love, heart and light. It is a testament to who she is and what this Charlotte Maxwell Clinic is.”