By: KATIE ZIMMERMAN, PERIMETER SCHOOL alum

We recently caught up with several of our Perimeter School alumni, and we are excited to share with you how Perimeter School has influenced their stories and how God is using them for kingdom impact.

Our next alumni spotlight is Katie Zimmerman, Perimeter School Class of 2008.

What do you do? Where do you live?

I live in Nashville, Tennessee where I work as a program manager for Vanderbilt Hospital’s Center for Patient & Professional Advocacy.⁠

How Did your time at Perimeter School influencE who you are and what you do today?

I think Perimeter School’s idea of covenant family has really influenced how I view the people around me. The friendships I formed there are some of the deepest I’ve ever had, and the number of adults who poured into me over the years is too large to count.⁠

What blows me away is that each of these relationships wasn’t just for the eight years I attended the school – they’ve continued to grow, and people have shown up at countless weddings, baby showers, and even funerals over the years. The idea of treating everyone as “family” is something I’ve taken with me to this day.⁠

"If it weren't for Perimeter School, I wouldn't know . . .”

If it weren’t for Perimeter School, I wouldn’t know how deeply our faith can affect every single part of who we are and what we do.⁠

Elementary and middle school are such formative years where we learn so much about what it means to be a person. The fact that our teachers and other parents took every opportunity to both explain and demonstrate how the Lord is involved in all parts of our lives has really stuck with me.

In what ways is the work you are doing now spiritually and culturally Significant?

At my job, our goal is to identify physicians who are receiving a higher number of patient complaints than their colleagues and then help them provide more patient-centered care. The mission statement of our center is “to make medicine safer, kinder, and more reliable." I love that we’re able to do that in a way that both advocates for the patients and comes alongside the doctors.⁠

I think that the work itself is significant, and I also think that every interaction with a co-worker or client is a chance to show them how much we care about them.⁠