LEAVING AMERICA: Emergency Physician Kathy McCue moves her family from Anchorage to New Zealand

Dr. Kathy McCue is an emergency medicine physician who first visited Alaska as a medical student in 1999. For 2 decades she staffed Anchorage ERs, mainly at the Alaska Native Medical Center but also at Providence, where she famously took care of Dan Bigley, author of Beyond the Bear, after a mauling left him blind and unlikely to survive. Dr. McCue moved her family in 2021 to New Zealand for an 18 month adventure. Then, in August of 2025, she and her family moved back to New Zealand permanently. They live in a small town on the northeast coast of the North Island where they are renovating an old farm house and growing their own vegetables. We discuss why they moved, the challenges involved, and their thoughts on their decision.