Chris Hawley, MD

Cofounder and Chief Medical Officer

My Core Values

A closer look

Chris Hawley, MD is a board-certified family medicine and sports medicine physician and co-founder and chief medical officer of Seity Health. Growing up in the suburbs of California in the 1980s, he rocked a killer mullet, loved sports, video games, and riding his skateboard. He thought he wanted to design the next great shoe for Nike and went to the University of Southern California to study Exercise Science and compete in track and field. Attending college in South Central Los Angeles in the early ‘90s opened his eyes to not only the incredible needs of the inner-city, but also the joy found in being part of the solution by serving others. His interest broadened beyond making high-performance sports shoes to wanting to make a difference as a physician to underserved communities.

He enrolled in the unique HBCU collaborative medical school with Charles Drew University of Medicine and UCLA. While in medical school, he married his high school sweetheart, and they moved into inner-city LA, along with friends from college, to start a non-profit focusing on neighborhood wellbeing that is still running after more than 30 years. While at Drew, he developed not only the skills to serve the healthcare needs of patients in underserved communities, but also the systems-thinking skills needed to deliver transformation at scale.

Dr. Chris completed his residency in family medicine and fellowship in sports medicine at the University of Washington in 2001, but he still had an itch to work with elite athletes. He joined the sports medicine team at the University of Texas, caring for many eventual Olympic and professional athletes, but saw a common need in people succeeding at the highest levels and those in the inner-city with few resources. They both often lacked a belief in their unique inner goodness and had difficulty seeing themselves as a whole person loaded with purpose, regardless of their life circumstances.

After Texas, Dr. Chris and his young family, moved back to California to take a faculty position teaching residents in a high-need area of Modesto, CA. On his first day, he met fellow sports medicine physician, Dr. Sam Romeo, and they quickly realized they just “had” to work together. They knew they wanted to develop a whole person model of care that not only improved health, but also improved people’s lives and performance. Over twenty years later, this continues to drive them, and the result is Seity Health.

Notable professional background

After graduating from USC with a major in exercise science, his desire to make a difference inspired him to attend the Charles Drew School of Medicine in South Central Los Angeles and complete residency and fellowship at the University of Washington.