Ingram's October 2023

MEGAN GARCIA Research Medical Center

LOWELL BYERS AdventHealth Shawnee Mission

Most kids head off to college to test the waters and chart their life’s path. Not Megan Garcia: She was unwav ering from Day One in UMKC’s accelerated med-school program. “I knew exactly what I wanted to be and had been undeterred from that focus for years,” says Gar cia. “I had no plan B for any other career than medical school. It allowed me to be close to home and have the support of my family while also allowing me to help those in my community.” In that sense, it was the fulfillment of her childhood wishes to be able to do something— anything—to help a sister suffering from occasional sei zures. “Watching her have seizures was traumatic for our whole family, as were times when my parents would

Lowell Byers’ medical odyssey began when he left the vast expanse of western Kansas, and his hometown of Ulyss es, for something other than a health-care career. His major at the University of Kansas would be chemical engineering. The closer he came to that goal, the more a realization sank in. “I was looking at what I wanted to do, and the typical thing for a chemist is to work for a company,” he says. “I consid

ered that, but wanted more contact with people and want ed to be able to help them di rectly.” Upon further review, the relationship he’d had back home with his primary-care physician inspired him to shift gears, and he left KU with his medical degree, with a focus on internal medicine. Byers stayed in Kansas City for his residency at Saint Luke’s Hospital, set up shop for four years in Hutchin son, then headed off to Minne

need to leave us with family or neighbors while they rode to the hospital in the ambu lance with her,” Garcia says. “I remember wishing that I could help her, but being so grateful to the physicians that treated my sister were able to. Whether or not they realized it, they made her life and our family life better. I wanted to help people in the same way.” She does that to day at Research Medical Cen

sota for a fellowship in gynecological oncology before com ing back to Kansas City. In that field, he’s realized his goal of helping people in need—in some cases, during the darkest moments of their lives. “You’re talking about some patients who get really sick, who need a lot of work compared to many other patient types,” Byers says. He and his practice partners affiliated with Saint Luke’s for years before re-aligning with AdventHealth in 2015. In recent years, he’s noted what ap pears to be an increase in the numbers of patients with en dometrial and cervical cancer. “I’m not sure why,” he says, “but these cases tend to be higher grade. As for the reasons, we have no clue, except endometrial is tied to obesity,” and the nation is experiencing an epidemic of that condition. He’s seeing more aggressive cancers that, in many cases, are pre senting at later stages. The upside is that much has changed in treatments and tools, especially since robotic surgery was introduced in 2008. “That has really blossomed, and it helps women with minimally invasive procedures,” he says. “It used to be almost all cases required open surgery, but now, a ma jority of the endometrial surgery is done through robotics,” as are lymph-node procedures for patients who are often able to go home the same day. This recognition is gratifying, Byers, says, but it’s not entirely fair. “It’s really not me,” he says. “I’m only here because I have a team that makes everything hap pen.” He shares the credit with everyone from the front desk checking patients in to the assistants getting them ready, the nurse practitioners and nurses taking care of people, the infu sion nurses and more. “When I’m tied up in surgery, I have a lot of help, including two very good partners,” he says. “I could not take care of these problems without them, or the hospi tal and its great support team of pathologists, specialists and staff who can help with all the problems these women face.”

ter’s Grossman Burn Center, attending to patients with some of the most painful injuries any human will ever experience. “We can all relate to my patients in that way, and it allows for connection through those shared expe riences,” she says. “Sometimes, the key is finding a way to make special connections at bedside. “I need to build trust with my patients early,” she says, and being ap proachable is a must—something made easier, perhaps, by that blue tint to her hair. “Many patients try and suffer through their pain with burn, citing that they feel weak. I let them know that even small burns cause tremendous pain.” So she won’t let them hold back on complaints, a false nobility that more likely adds to and prolongs their suffering. When the successes do come, they can be pro found, as with a woman she once treated, a drug addict who was suffering from what the public calls “flesh-eat ing bacteria.” “Little did I know after talking with her ex tensively that we went to the same high school at the same time,” Garcia marvels. “We lived in the same city growing up. I was able to save her legs when many oth ers would have likely amputated.” A year ago, that patient came back to say thanks not just for that life-saving care but for the life-altering that followed. Says Garcia: “I will never forget her and how the kindness, encouragement, and understanding (we) showed her was what she need ed to find a path in her life that she is proud of.”

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I ngr am ’ s

Kansas City’s Business Media

October 2023