After more than 45 years as a surgeon and educator, medical trailblazer Marilee McBoyle-Wiesner, M.D., KU School of Medicine-Wichita surgery professor, has hung up her white coat.

In 1977, McBoyle-Wiesner became the first woman accepted into the KUSM-Wichita surgery residency program at what was then St. Francis Hospital.

After completing a fellowship in burn and trauma care at the University of New Mexico, she returned to Wichita to embark on a career that included being the first female board-certified surgeon in Kansas and specializing in breast care surgery, expanding wound treatment options for patients, becoming a nationally recognized surgery educator for KUSM-Wichita surgery residents and medical students, and leading efforts to certify the KUSM-Wichita Surgical Skills Lab as an accredited education institute by the American College of Surgeons.

To acknowledge McBoyle-Wiesner’s impact in teaching surgical skills and her service as the lab’s medical director, the lab was renamed in her honor before she retired at the end of December.

“We wanted to recognize her contributions over the years to the Department of Surgery and her role in the founding of the Surgical Skills Lab … and (teaching) how to do certain surgical techniques,” said Alex D. Ammar, M.D., professor and recently retired chair of the KUSM-Wichita Department of Surgery.

The lab, located on the third floor at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis, can accredit residents in the fundamentals of laparoscopic surgery and fundamentals of endoscopy.

Medical students also spend time in the lab. Third-year students are introduced to surgical procedures in the lab and fourth-year students planning to go into surgery or surgery-related residencies can hone their skills during a boot camp in the lab.

Leaving a legacy

While McBoyle-Wiesner eagerly taught both men and women, she became known for her mentorship of other women.

For example, before she retired, she shared her story and gave encouragement to the newly formed Suture Sisters group, started by medical students Erica Wunderlich and Lauren Ellis, that met at the home of Theresa Cusick, M.D., clinical professor in the Department of Surgery.

“It should not be taken for granted that she broke barriers for us,” Cusick said at McBoyle-Wiesner’s retirement event. “She is a gentle leader. She is the ultimate role model for integrity, ethics, quality and compassion.”

When Cusick became a resident in the KUSM-Wichita program in 1994, McBoyle-Wiesner was the only female attending surgeon in town. McBoyle-Wiesner became a mentor whom Cusick turned to when she was deciding whether to specialize in breast care. McBoyle-Wiesner’s deep faith and compassion provided much-needed emotional support for Cusick as she dealt with a difficult pregnancy.

“The biggest impact she’s had is that she (was) so giving of her time and talents to teaching. … It was always a safe space for learning,” said Sarah Corn, M.D., clinical assistant professor and surgery clerkship director at KUSM-Wichita.

“The thing that always catches my attention is how she’s always building people up. … And she’s very genuine about it. I think that kind of attitude is what I will take away most from her,” said Corn, who first met McBoyle-Wiesner when she was a medical student.

She also left an impact on her patients, Ammar said.

“She was very meticulous in her approach with patients and very caring,” said Ammar, who became professor and chair of the KUSM-Wichita surgery department and the president and CEO of Wichita Surgical Specialists in 1998.

Becoming a surgeon

Perhaps more than anyone, Ammar has seen firsthand the progression of McBoyle-Wiesner’s career.

He was a second-year resident when she entered the surgical residency program, they both became surgeons with Wichita Surgical Specialists and they both have trained future surgeons through KUSM-Wichita.

She even became an honorary extended family member. George Farha, M.D., who oversaw the surgical residency program when McBoyle-Wiesner was accepted and who also founded Wichita Surgical Specialists, was Ammar’s uncle.

“He had four daughters, and he considered Marilee as his fifth,” Ammar said.

Before accepting her into the residency program, Farha and Fred Chang, M.D., another residency administrator and KUSM-Wichita professor emeritus, had been honest about the difficulties McBoyle-Wiesner would face as the first woman in the program and trying to build a practice in a male-dominated field.

“I think it helped that I didn’t expect everything to change because I had gotten there,” McBoyle-Wiesner said. “Those concerns that they cited, they never really came to fruition.”

While she encountered things that reminded her that she was in a unique position — like not having a designated women’s changing area to put on her surgical greens — “I had decided I wasn’t going to look for those things. I only had so much mental energy and I needed that to be learning the task and procedures at hand.”

Farha also encouraged McBoyle-Wiesner to complete a fellowship before she joined his practice in 1983.

After 17 years with WSS, McBoyle-Wiesner resigned from her thriving breast care practice in 2000 to spend more time with the three young sons she shared with her husband, Tim. She handed off her practice to Cusick.

“Those little fellas just won my heart,” McBoyle-Wiesner said. “I loved my practice, but as I started to think about it, I realized there were a lot of wonderful surgeons in Wichita that my patients could go to but I’m the only mom these fellows have. … Through the years, I’ve been asked, ‘Did you miss surgery?’ and my answer was always, ‘Yes, but not as much as I missed them.’”

New opportunities

While she left the operating room, she didn’t give up the classroom.

“I had done some teaching with medical students, and I asked Dr. Ammar about continuing to do that,” McBoyle-Wiesner said. She continued working with medical students during their surgical clerkships.

For a few years, McBoyle-Wiesner, whose mother had been an elementary teacher, also homeschooled her sons.

After about four years, with her sons older and “going off in different directions with their schooling,” she started supervising surgery resident clinics a few afternoons a week.

“And then other things opened up,” McBoyle-Wiesner said.

The other things were starting the Surgery Skills Lab at KUSM-Wichita in the mid-2000s and becoming the medical director for the Ascension Via Christi’s new Wound Therapy and Hyperbaric Treatment center in 2012. She left the wound center in 2022 to focus exclusively on her duties with KUSM-Wichita.

In October 2023, she was inducted as a full member of the American College of Surgeons’ Academy of Master Surgeon Educators®. At the time of her induction, Ammar said, "… to my knowledge (she) is the first surgeon in the entire KU Surgery system to receive full member status.”

“She was all about helping other individuals achieve their goals in the best way they could,” Ammar said.

McBoyle-Wiesner credits her parents with instilling that sense of encouragement she passed on to her students. Her mother and father, a farmer, often told her she could do anything she wanted.

Her interest in medicine came at a young age, inspired by two women doctors: one who treated her and the other whom she read about.

McBoyle-Wiesner said she was “fortunate to be cared for” at age 7 by Ruth Montgomery-Short, M.D.

“I was so impressed with this woman who had removed my tonsils, and she talked about having daughters at home.”

Two years later, at age 9, she read the book “Elizabeth Blackwell: The First Woman Doctor.” The British-born Blackwell became the first woman in the U.S. to earn a medical degree, finishing first in her class in 1849 from Geneva College in rural New York.

“I remember — and it’s still very vivid — that after reading it, I went to find my mother … and I told her, ‘Mommy, I know what I want to do when I grow up. I want to be a doctor.’ And it was so sweet, she paused what she was doing, and she looked down at me, and she said, ‘If that's what you want to do, your dad and I will always try to encourage you in any way we can.”

Now in retirement, McBoyle-Wiesner will take advantage of other new opportunities.

She and Tim, a semi-retired ordained minister and owner of Fresh Roast Coffee Co. in Wichita, are planning to go on a bus trip to Yellowstone. She’s also going more often to the Y, mentoring a youth group at her church and plans to “pick up again on piano lessons.”

“I’m just having a wonderful time,” McBoyle-Wiesner said.