Leland R. McGinness Children's Mercy Hospital
Leland McGinness keeps a paraphrased quote inspired by business management writer Peter Drucker on his desk: “The purpose of an organization is to enable ordinary men to do extraordinary things.” As the administrative chief of staff at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, McGinness has had the opportunity to play a key role in such an organization.
Invited to Kansas City by President and CEO Randall O'Donnell to join the Children's Mercy administration in 1993, McGinness accepted and later went on to oversee the development of Children's Mercy South and, just a few months ago, the purchase of Western Missouri Mental Health. McGinness and O'Donnell had previously worked together at Arkansas Children's Hospital, which had also undergone tremendous expansion under their leadership.
McGinness, 74, also oversees Children’s Mercy’s psychosocial services, which includes the Child Life, Social Work and Chaplaincy departments. Child Life pairs young children going into surgery with medical professionals who can ease their apprehensions and help them understand what the medical equipment is for. “We try to create the least emotional trauma possible for children,” McGinniss explains. The hospital employs more than 40 social workers and five full-time chaplains who provide psychosocial support for children with emotional trauma or terminal cases.
McGinniss’ greatest joy working at the hospital is being able “to serve as an advocate for the children who depend on us for their healthcare. Working at Children’s Mercy, you never have to turn a child away who needs our care.”
Dr. Gary Morsch Heart to Heart International
In his 14 years as president of Heart to Heart International, Dr. Gary Morsch has delivered aid to hurricane victims and has seen earthquake devastation in Turkey. But what Morsch saw in tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka he describes as “the largest scale mass of destruction I've ever seen.”
He also recognized the disaster as the “greatest opportunity we've ever had to build bridges to the Muslim and Hindu world.”
Dr. Morsch founded Heart to Heart in response to a “recognized interest among other physicians and people to not just write a check, but to get personally involved.” The not-for-profit organization grew from his medical missions experience and his involvement with the Olathe Rotary Club's incredible airlift of more than 75 tons of donated food and medical supplies to Moscow, Russia in 1992. Today, Heart to Heart has delivered $300 million worth of aid to more than 100 countries. Last year, alone, the organization delivered nearly $75 million worth of product worldwide.
Dr. Morsch also serves as president of Docs Who Care, an organization he helped create ten years ago that assists local doctors by providing staffing for emergency rooms and hospitals in rural communities in Kansas, Missouri and Colorado. Since then, it has become the largest provider of rural health services in Kansas.
Whether in rural Kansas or South Asia, Dr. Morsch holds to the importance of community awareness and the belief that “God created every person with a purpose. That’s what I want to do, help people find meaningful service. That’s where you find personal satisfaction.”
Dr. Lori A. Boyajian-O’Neill KCUMB
Dr. Lori A. Boyajian-O’Neill admits that a few coincidences explain some of the opportunities she has had as a sports and family medicine physician. Her Lakeside Hospital internship in 1991 might never have occurred if she hadn’t been working across the street. “I walked across the street and I asked them if they were in need of a physician for their women’s basketball team,” she says. “They said yes.”
But, even this coincidence pales next to an opportunity Dr. Boyajian-O’Neill received at a crowded conference at Temple University earlier that year. At one point, the man sitting next to her casually leaned over and asked, “Do you have an interest in sports medicine?” Next thing she knew, Dr. Boyajian-O’Neill, who had never considered sports medicine, was invited to Bulgaria by Dr. Walter Geisinger to assist the U.S. Women's Soccer Team, with a then-unknown Mia Hamm. “It changed my career,” she says.
Today, Dr. Boyajian-O’Neill chairs the Department of Family Medicine at the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences and is team physician for, among others, North Kansas City School district and Johnson County Community College. As part of her community medicine outreach efforts started in 1997, she provides, free of charge, pre-participation physicalexaminations to all student athletes, many of whom would be unable to afford them otherwise.
She has also recently been named team physician for U.S.A. Volleyball, yet another great opportunity for which Dr. Boyajian-O’Neill is very humble. “You think they would screen these things,” she jokes.