A conversation with Linda Francisco

It was pretty much a given that Linda Francisco would grow up to be a doctor.

Francisco, 63, is the 2011 president of the Medical Society of Sedgwick County, the second woman in the group's 108-year history to serve as president.

Francisco is a nephrologist, or kidney specialist, who has been practicing in the Wichita area for nearly three decades. She graduated from the University of Iowa School of Medicine, where she also completed her residency and fellowship in nephrology.

She was one of five children born to Sidney Yugend, an Indianola, Iowa, surgeon who also wore the hats of an obstetrician, pediatrician and family practitioner.

"He never took a vacation in his life," Francisco said. "The day he married my mother, they got married on a Sunday. (After the wedding ceremony) he took her to the hospital where he had to deliver a baby. She sat and waited and then they went home. And he went to work the next morning."

Francisco, who came to Wichita with her cardiologist husband, Dan Francisco, and their three children from Minneapolis, said it was pretty much understood that she would follow in the same profession as her father.

"Basically my father... wanted me to go into medicine, and I was a very compliant child. I never argued with my parents. My dad wanted me to do it, and I was able to attain the grades to do it. I didn't have any other thing that I thought about doing with my life, so when he said, 'Be a doctor,' I said, 'Sure. Sounds good to me.'''

You were OK with him deciding your profession?

"When I got into medicine I really enjoyed it. It's amazing how your parents kind of understand you better than you understand yourself. I think he really understood me, my personality, and the minute I got into medicine I just loved it. I loved the knowledge, the learning, but more importantly I loved taking care of patients. And I think he kind of understood that about my personality, that I would enjoy being a caregiver."

So how did you end up choosing nephrology as a your specialty?

"My father wanted me to do general practice and come back and take over his practice, which I was not enthusiastic to go back to a small town in Iowa. I really wrestled as to what I really wanted to do, but the one thing about nephrologists that I liked the most was that they were the best diagnosticians, and I thought they delivered the best care of any physicians I encountered."

Why do you think they are good diagnosticians?

"I think because they dealt with patients that were so ill. When you have kidney failure, it involves every organ system basically. And so they really took care of the whole patient as opposed to a lot of specialties. They do very specific things. And a nephrologist has to... kind of put the whole thing together. They sort of took all of the knowledge you learned in medical school, and they were the one specialty that could kind of pull everything together."

What do you hope to accomplish as medical society president?

"One of the things I really want to do is I want to see the participation in the medical society by the physicians in our community increase. There are a few people who have been leaders. But a lot of physicians, even though they are members, they don't really participate much, and I'd like to see them participate a great deal more. We have Project Access, GraceMed, we have other wonderful places for volunteer work that I would love to see physicians get a little bit more involved in, and I would like to see them be involved in other aspects of community health.

"We want to apply for a community transformation grant in which we make our community a healthier community. And we're working within the medical society and some other organizations in the community to try to put in for this grant. We would like to make Wichita a very healthy community to live in, to do a better job of allowing people to have access to healthier foods, have access to biking paths, walking paths, a healthier lifestyle, understanding weight control, cholesterol control, things that are very important for them to have a healthier lifestyle."

How much of your week is spent on medical society duties?

"Let's just say the medical society duties do take a certain degree of time, but they are very worthwhile."

What are you doing to balance the demands of your work as a physician with those of the medical society?

"Getting less sleep. I'm working more. I have less time for other things than I used to. My children are grown now. With them grown and on their own... I don't have that commitment. I hope that my patients don't feel like I'm taking too much time away from them."

How is it different being a physician today than it was 10 years ago?

"The thing that has just exploded in our world has been the computers, (such as) electronic medical records, but also everything that has to be done electronically. It's made communication with other physicians and other offices a lot easier, but for someone of my vintage who didn't grow up with computers, it's like learning a whole new language."

What have you learned about yourself or about the community in your role as medical society president?

"I learned a great deal about people in the community and how wonderful they are. There are many people that are out there who are trying to work hard to make Wichita a better community. I am just so impressed."

This story was originally published March 13, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "A conversation with Linda Francisco."