Maybe you think you know what life is like for an ER doctor, because you watch TV. For Mark Steele, Chief Medical Officer at Truman Medical Center and Associate Dean at the UMKC School of Medicine, some days the emergency room has actually been the calmer part of his life. Steele and his wife had triplets in June of 1992, which means their lives are definitely filled up by the ten year olds. “Would you believe I actually have a fourth?” asks Steele. Not yet knowing they were pregnant, the couple signed up to adopt a child in the summer of 1991. Then in November, just a week before they would learn about the triplets, Steele got a call to come pick up a baby boy, whom the couple agreed to adopt. “So every year from June until November, I can say I have four kids the same age!”

Originally from St. Louis, Steele came to Kansas City in 1974 to study at UMKC. He started his career in emergency medicine, which he picked in school because he liked the wide variety of patients he could help. “One of the things I really like about the emergency room is that we do so much more acute care, whereas the time I’d spent in clinics was much more about treating the same chronic patients repeatedly.”

Teaching and writing have been a major part of his career, with more a hundred articles and chapters to his credit. He has worked through UMKC and Truman for the past 10 years, helping to develop emergency medicine from a fledgling specialty to a field where today there are more than 120 training programs nationwide.

While Steele has appreciated television dramas bringing the medical world onto the small screen, the seasoned emergency veteran wants to inject some reality into the public’s perception of his work. “Maybe there are shifts when it occasionally feels that busy,” says Steele. “But trust me, no one could survive if it was that chaotic every day.” Then again, anyone who can keep up with four kids the same age can certainly keep up with a busy shift!

Jim Whitaker has been called a renaissance man. The medical community knows Whitaker best as an orthopedic surgeon, but he has enjoyed tremendous success in a variety of arenas, including actual athletic arenas. Whitaker says he originally gravitated toward sports medicine because of his experiences as an athlete. Whitaker was a stand-out football player who was inducted into the sports Hall of Fame at both Rockhurst

High School and the University of Missouri. As a senior at MU, Whitaker was an all-Big 8 cornerback, and after the season he was drafted by the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League.

Whitaker turned down a possible football career to go to MU’s School of Medicine, after which he moved to the University of Indiana for a fellowship in upper extremity surgery. Today, Whitaker is the President of the Kansas City Bone and Joint Clinic, a nine-doctor orthopedic group in the heart of Kansas City.

“We see all sorts of patients,” Whitaker relates. “I don’t want to restrict our practice, but generally our patients fall into three categories: upper extremities, sports medicine and joint replacement.” Whitaker takes a strong interest in all three.

“Artificial joints are made of much stronger materials today than when we first started doing replacements,” says Whitaker. “Technological developments fuel my continued interest in this field. Today, our microvascular capabilities enable us to perform operations we never would have dreamed of when I started medicine.”

While Whitaker has labored to become a premier orthopedic surgeon, his love of sports has never been far away. The former team physician for the Kansas City Chiefs has also done stints with the Kings (basketball), Comets (soccer) and Davis Cup
tournaments (tennis).

“Family is also a big part of my life,” says Whitaker, whose kids have all grown up and settled in the K.C. area. “We’ve got grandkids we get to see regularly, with two more on the way soon.” With a smile, he relates how blessed he is to still have his mother and a brother living in Kansas City, too.

Count the hats Whitaker has worn: son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, stellar athlete, scholar, surgeon with a variety of specialties. Truly a renaissance man.

Dr. Richard Muther is a nephrologist who came back to work where he grew up, but still enjoys traveling the world. After medical school at KU, the Kansas City native did an externship at a hospital in San Francisco where he was first drawn to nephrology. Muther then moved to Eugene, Ore., for a fellowship at the University of Oregon under a leading nephrologist, before returning to Kansas City to practice.

Muther is quick to point out that his successes are the culmination of contributions from many people, foremost among them his partners, Gerry Reid, Walter Bender, Sudarshan Hebbar and Tim Newfeld.

An avid skier, Muther joins several other doctors from Kansas City on annual trips to Canada where they drop from helicopters onto fresh bowls of snow. They also meet up each year with doctors from Houston, to share information and relax. Muther says he comes away from each trip with a refreshed mind and body.

“It’s both challenging and rewarding to learn about all the significant strides being made in kidney transplants,” Muther relates. “Twenty years ago it was hard to imagine a day when transplants would be the treatment of choice for kidney disease patients.”
At the same time, Muther says there are other developments he has watched in his twenty years of practice that have had enormous consequences for his kidney patients. Virtually every medication he originally prescribed has been improved, and many of them have been entirely passed up by newly developed chemical combinations.

“Probably the biggest change in medicine I’ve seen has been the intrusion of economics,” Muther says. “By that I mean that to be an effective doctor today you have to be aware of how your patient’s scenario is affected by insurance approvals, hospital protocols, prescriptions and pharmacies, and even the work being done by competing providers of healthcare.”

But Muther insists he does not complain about economics. He knows international trips that the U.S. medical system is still the best. Last month he flew to Egypt to deliver a series of lectures and workshops on critical care in nephrology, and Muther says he will always jump at the chance to teach the next generation of specialists.