Get to Know Dr. Paula Mayer!

February 6, 2023
Portrait of Leah Sanford in glasses, smiling against a gray background with a purple frame and award badge.

We are excited to introduce you to the Arizona Medical Association's (ArMA) Member Spotlight for February, Paula Mayer, MD! Dr. Mayer is an emergency medicine physician in Tuba City, Arizona, and currently serves as the Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation. Within ArMA, Dr. Mayer serves on the Communications Committee, influencing publications like this one!

 

To some, Dr. Mayer's journey with medicine may seem unconventional. Beginning her career in television news, Dr. Mayer sees medicine through a different lens, providing patients with solid communication and quality care.


Learn all about Dr. Mayer's journey with medicine in the interview below! 

What is one message you would give to your 18-year-old self? 


Pick a goal, any goal, then move in that direction. Time will pass faster than you expect, and you might as well get something done in the meantime.


What inspires you? 


Finding solutions to problems. Sometimes it's the answer to why an ED patient has a particular symptom. Sometimes it's looking at why the EHR isn't functioning as we expect or would like. Problem-solving gives me energy and fires me up to find more problems.


If you weren't a physician, what would you be up to right now? 


If I weren't a physician, I would be a National Transportation Safety Board investigator. I love figuring out what went wrong or is going wrong.


What place would you most like to visit? 


I would like to visit a place in the far north where I can see the Aurora Borealis. I have always wanted to see the Northern Lights in person instead of in pictures.


What would you like remembered about you? 


I hope my colleagues will remember that working with me was a good experience and that I always had something a little different or offbeat to contribute. I think that having a career in TV news before medicine gives me a different perspective than those who had a more traditional science or medical background. 


What would people be surprised to learn about you?


I think some people would be surprised that I spent the first ten years of my career in TV control rooms and crouching next to a camera during news conferences.


What do you like best about living in Arizona? 


The breathtaking beauty of the desert driving from Tuba City to Phoenix. I grew up along the Pacific coast, so the saguaro cactus and red dirt still seem very exotic to me.


What prompted you to become involved in organized medicine? 


I felt like organized medicine didn't fully represent my interests, and I wanted to promote change from the inside.

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