Ingram's October 2023

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SALAH NAJM Stormont Vail Health

The question comes at a moment that, for many, is framed by shock, surprise and fear. It arrives with the diagnosis of a serious health issue or physical impairment, one that could affect not just you, but your family and your livelihood. At that instant, it’s only natural to ask, “Who’s the best doctor to treat this?” The answer to your question will NOT come from a Goo gle search or through AI. As a practical matter, the advice gleaned from most of those sites is worth exactly the price of the search. And forget what that friend of a friend of your second cousin had to say about their procedures—their lack of a medical degree says enough about their qualifications for recommending a physician. No, the best way to find the best doctor is by asking one of the best. And for 27 years, Ingram’s has done just that with our Top Doctors feature. From a growing array of thousands of physicians serving a metro area that runs from Topeka to Sedalia and St. Joseph to Harrisonville, we’ve spotlighted hun dreds of physicians to date, and each year, we go back to that ever-widening pool of talent to ask that old, familiar question: If it were you, whom would you seek out for treatment? Their recommendations are just the starting point for our process to select each year’s class of Top Doctors. This year, we welcome into the fold 18 medical professionals with rep utations for being gifted, compassionate providers of health care. These are physicians who are at the level of where they sought out by other physicians for their expertise. This year’s honorees hail from such varied specialties as cardiology, pulmonology and critical care, obstetrics, internal medicine and transplant surgery, as well as general fields of family practitioner and primary care physician. Together, they help make Kansas City a center for excep tional health-care delivery. Congratulations to these fine phy sicians, and to all the nominees for Top Doctors recognition in 2023. Numbers alone don’t create a center of excellence when it comes to health-care pro viders. Their values, their training, their skill and compassion are what sets them apart. This is Why Kansas City Is a Force in Health Care

Salah Najm’s fascination for biology, medicine, and understanding disease processes took root in his native Lebanon, but he sees health care today through a lens polished by exposure to medical practices around the world. He picked up something from different countries and cultures, he says, through a “love of travel that sent me to Austria, Vienna, and the United States (Los Ange les, Boston), where I did electives in various medical spe cialties,” as well as volunteer work for the Red Cross and free clinics for the underserved, going all the way back to his high school and college years. College at the Amer ican University of Beirut yielded a bachelor’s in biology, and for a while medical engineering and medical software

were possibilities. “Eventual ly, I realized that my true pas sion lies in patient care,” Najm says. “I decided to continue in bedside medicine and pur sue a degree in critical care, as I found it deeply fulfilling to connect with patients, as sist in their healing process, and communicate with their families. Seeing the positive impact I can make in people’s lives is truly rewarding.” He applies those skills as a pul

monologist/sleep specialist for Topeka-based Stormont Vail, home to one of the region’s largest medical centers. “Pulmonology and critical-care medicine is a broad spe cialty and not typically limited to one organ,” he says. “Critical care involves caring for the sickest patients, un derstanding their whole body physiology, and managing all organ failures. As a critical-care physician, I provide one-to-one care for patients and build connections with their family members. It is deeply fulfilling to help patients and their families navigate the most challenging illness es and support them during such difficult times,” he says. His search for a career base was a two-for-one exercise: His wife is a pediatric oncologist, so Stormont Vail offer- ed what both were seeking when they arrived in 2012. Among the more exciting advances in his line of work, he says, are the big changes wrought by ever-smaller de vices. Those have led to minimally invasive (nonsurgical) options to treat lung cancer, treating COPD by inserting valves into the airways, managing complicated infections with small catheters, and improving sleep with an implant able device, he says. “As medicine evolves and new treat ment options are available, we are seeing a shift in the nature of diseases,” Najm notes. “Conditions like simple infections, asthma, and early-stage cancers can be quickly treated and managed. However, we are now challenged by more complex cases and higher severity of illness.”

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I ngr am ’ s

Kansas City’s Business Media

October 2023