Although he considers himself partially retired, Dr. Bob Lutz is finding ways to keep caring for the well-being of the public.

The former Spokane Regional Health District health officer spends his free time caring for vulnerable people through the CHAS Health Street Medicine team, while he serves as the health officer for the Asotin County Health District in southeastern Washington, a position he has held since 2018. Other days, Lutz, 64, finds himself watering trees and planting shrubs as a volunteer with the Spokane Central Lion’s Club.

As a nature enthusiast who has explored the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for weeks at a time with his wife, Amy, Lutz emphasizes the importance of outdoor experiences for young people, noting that being in nature offers health benefits, he says.

“Young people don’t have that experience anymore,” says Lutz. “They may be seeing it on a screen, but it’s very different when you’re out there in the Arctic Refuge. We know the benefits of nature, of green spaces; there’s a lot of research on all of those.”

To help young people get out in nature, the Lutzes are creating an endowment focused on outdoor experiences, education, service, and nature, using the funds he won in his wrongful termination lawsuit against the Spokane Regional Health District.  

In May, the health district agreed to pay Lutz $1.65 million to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit stemming from his contentious firing amid the pandemic in October 2020.  

“It was never about the money; it was about the injustice that was done to us,” Lutz says about the lawsuit filed against the health district. “I took a stand for public health and for the public’s health. It wasn’t about me; it was about the injustice that was done to us. From the get-go, I truly believed we would win, and the settlement kind of demonstrates that.”

The last time the Journal caught up with Lutz was in September 2020, a little over a month ahead of his termination. The first coronavirus case in the country was confirmed in Snohomish County, Washington, in mid-January 2020. Lutz recalls a certain naivete that the virus would not travel to Spokane, even as cases continued to multiply in the Seattle area. At the time he says it was difficult for him and his team to receive the support to begin to prepare for its arrival, he says.

“Our first case was March 14,” Lutz says. “I remember vividly my epidemiologist staff person called me in to tell me we had a mother and two kids as our first cases. We then let the community know that we had cases, and if we had three cases, we had 30 cases.”

The onset of the pandemic quickly thrust Lutz into the public spotlight, in which he was tasked with enforcing guidelines aimed at keeping the public safe while simultaneously responding and trying to curb the spread of the virus.

Governmental public health agencies are by definition political, Lutz asserts. As it's essential for the health department to work closely with elected officials, SRHD had previously developed a good relationship with its board of health. The dynamic changed significantly during the pandemic, however, and public health became politicized, he says.

“The statement became lives versus livelihoods,” Lutz says. “Arguing to put livelihoods in front of lives is really challenging when you’re a public health person and a physician. And for me, I have to save a life, and every life is essential. And if I don’t have a life, I certainly don’t have a livelihood.”

Despite his termination from the Spokane Regional Health District, Lutz went back to work in public health almost immediately. In December 2020, Lutz joined the Washington State Department of Health as its COVID-19 medical adviser, a newly created position that put him back in the middle of the state’s pandemic response.

The new role carried a certain irony, Lutz says. While he was no longer leading the pandemic response in Spokane directly, he was helping create guidance and recommendations at the state level that would ultimately make their way back to the city's health jurisdictions. Much of that work was carried out from the basement of his South Hill home.

“My office was Bob’s basement next to the washer and dryer,” he jokes.

Looking back, Lutz says he is proud of the work he and his colleagues accomplished during a difficult period.

“We did really good work,” he says. “I think arguably, when we look back on what we did, I think we can say we were really impactful.”

Although he once ran a private practice, Lutz says he found his calling in public health.

He grew up in Pennsylvania and joined the Navy, serving as a physician with the Marine Corps for four years at Camp Pendleton in California. He later moved to Florida, completing his residency and a fellowship in sports medicine, where he met his wife, Amy. The couple briefly moved to Oregon, where Lutz opened a private practice, but discovered it wasn’t a good fit. The newlyweds then moved to Arizona for six years, during which tiime Lutz earned a fellowship in integrative medicine. 

It was during his time in Arizona that Lutz became drawn to public health. While he says he enjoyed caring for individual patients, he became increasingly interested in taking a broader, population-based approach to public health. One that considers the environment in which people live and seeks to reach vulnerable populations that often fall through the cracks, he explains.

“I love working with patients, as I do now doing street medicine,” Lutz says. “But I also was really interested in sort of a population approach and really trying to impact the entire community, especially our most vulnerable community members.”

By the time he moved to Spokane, in 2004, Lutz says he aspired to become a health officer for the Spokane Regional Health District. He worked as an urgent care physician for several years and served on SRHD’s board of health for eight years before being appointed health officer in 2017.  

“Eventually, it became a dream come true,” says Lutz.

After five years and winning a settlement, Lutz says he’s ready to move on. Looking ahead, his goal is to quietly continue serving the community, practice medicine, build an endowment, and put the lawsuit behind him.

“You need to move forward,” he says. “I don’t wish this on anybody; it’s part of my story. Part of the resolution of the settlement was just to get past it and move on with your life, then do good with the life that you have and what you’ve been given and do the best that you can. That’s kind of where we are right now.”