Ingram's October 2023

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RANA EL FEGHALY Children’s Mercy Kansas City

KIRK RIDLEY BELTON MEDICAL CENTER

“ Dr. Frog! ” The excited preschooler running toward Rana El Feghaly was, in terms, a far cry from the 4-year-old who the doctor once treated for a large brain abscess. “I used to carry a frog stethoscope and had told her the story about how my first name means ‘frog’ in Spanish,” Feghaly recalls. “Knowing that she remembered me after a year and looking at her walking and talking perfectly well made me so hap

Belton, Mo., wasn’t a small town when Kirk Ridley be gan practicing medicine there more than 40 years ago, but it wasn’t far from one. Since then, it’s roughly doubled in size, and Ridley has been there throughout as a pillar of health care for residents and as a civic rock, support ing service clubs, youth development causes, the local historical society, and more. In every sense of the title,

py!” In that moment, El Feghaly again received the validation of her choices: To become a doc tor, to be educated and trained in America, and to pursue her passions in pediatric medicine in Kansas City. That runs all the way back to her youth in Lebanon, where she was the first in her family to choose medicine. “It was something I started considering when in school as I was (and still am) fascinated by biology and was

he’s been a community doc tor—local medical lore holds that he was the first physi cian to admit a patient when the current medical center opened in town. Born and raised in this area, he found Belton in the 1980s to have much the same allure as the southern Johnson County of his youth. “I love the friend- liness of its people and the small-town atmosphere of Belton,” he says. “My ambi

inspired by some of my amazing schoolteachers to pursue this track,” says Feghaly, frequently citing the mentors who made her own journey possible. “Pediatrics was a given to me, as I loved working with children from the minute I started doing rotations in the hospitals,” she says. Hands-on treat ment and meaningful research opportunities fit hand-in-glove with her love for teaching and microbiology—she also holds faculty appointments in the UMKC and KU schools of med icine. She took her fascination with infectious diseases and leveraged her training “to think about research and quality to leave a strong impact on the medical field as a whole.” Treat ing such cases is fundamentally different—and in some ways, more challenging—than trauma cases or chronic illnesses that are difficult in their own right. “I think what is fascinating about infectious diseases is the investigative work that goes on to help identify the problem,” El Feghaly says. “Of course, some of the infections we deal with are straightforward and have clear guidelines that help us manage them. However, many times, we get consulted on patients with unusual clini cal presentations, and we have to truly investigate what may be causing the child’s illness. It is so rewarding when you find that answer and help the child feel better!” Over the years, as the pediatric system has expanded its geographic reach, she’s seen an increasingly diverse caseload of infection and disease types, further stoking her passion to understand. And sometimes, the impact of that treatment is life-altering. One of El Feghaly’s fondest memories involves an adolescent who had a severe infection and was treated in the hospital’s ICU. “She recovered completely and reached out to me a couple of years later and asked to shadow me in the hospital as she was inspired by the infectious diseases team,” she says. Why? “She had decided to become a doctor herself.”

tion was to strive to be present where I thought I could really help people.” A brief flirtation with the idea of be coming a lawyer yielded to that commitment to serve. “My love affair with the practice of medicine really began when I started medical school at KU, and it has continued and deepened to the present day,” he says. “I am now 70 years old, and I can’t even contemplate retirement, as I enjoy the practice of medicine so much.” So, it’s no sur prise that after earning his M.D., he headed off into family practice. That field, he says, “always appealed to me be cause you really get to know the people that you are tak ing care of. First, you try to take care of their immediate medical problem, calm their fears, and assure them that they won’t be fighting their illness alone. Then, after that, the real fun begins as you can really try to get to know the person.” He’s learned that every patient has a story and almost everyone has a passion. “I am usually able to really get to know the patient, their likes and dislikes, and their history and their hobbies or passions,” he says. “Many of my patients have become good friends over the years, and some even like family.” Like most physicians trained during his era, he celebrates the technological advances that have improved care—same-day availabili ty of specialists’ consultations, CAT scans, and MRIs, and vastly improved pharmaceutical options among them. The downside? Again, many a seasoned veteran will cite concerns over the battles required to get insurance pay ment for necessary services and the ever-present web of regulations to navigate. Despite those, he says, “being a doctor “allows me to indulge in my passion, and that is to try to help people. I seriously don’t know what can be better than that.”

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October 2023

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