2013 Salute to Health Care Honoree: Dr. Darren Lehnert

Dr. Darren Lehnert always planned to become a teacher.

He grew up in Rolla, Kan. – a small town in the southwest corner of the state where Lehnert says teachers’ kids became teachers and farmers’ kids became farmers. Lehnert was a teacher’s kid.

With plans to teach high school science, Lehnert took a detour while pursing his undergrad degree.

 “At college, I was taking pretty much all the same classes as the premed guys. One of my good friends was premed and had been accepted at the University of Oklahoma. He said, ‘You should do this.’ I got to looking at it, talked to some people about the finances, and I thought, ‘This is doable,’” Lehnert says. “I was always interested in the sciences and the ability to interact with people and help people.”

While finishing his residency in Wichita, Kan., in 1997, Lehnert says an opportunity to come to Mercy presented itself – and he has never looked back. For 16 years now, Lehnert has left his mark on the Springfield community as a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology. Those years translate into 6,000 babies delivered and thousands of surgical procedures.

Lehnert says he typically works 12- to 14-hour days, with the time split between caring for pregnant women, delivering babies, surgeries and office work.

“I have got to keep a lot of plates spinning,” Lehnert says. “One of the things that drew me into this specialty was that you weren’t just in the office.”

At the end of the day, he says helping families gives him the most satisfaction.  

“It’s a real honor when people come in and they trust you with the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child,” Lehnert says. “With a lot of these families, you become apart of their lives from then on. I still see people out and about that I delivered for 12 or 14 years ago, and they’ll come up to me in Target or wherever. It is a unique specialty in that regard.”

Lehnert says he also feels honored to have been asked to participate in one of Mercy’s top leadership committees for physicians: the Clinical Practice Committee.

“It is primarily a physician-led group that handles things such as large capital budgeting,” he says. “It gives you a chance to help improve the environment for physicians as a whole.”

Lehnert has seen value in devoting time to several Mercy committees and outside organizations through the years. He is a member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Central Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Mercy Clinic Risk Management and Mercy Clinic Gynecologic Improvement Group, and this year, a graduate of Leadership Springfield. He also has served as a mentor for Evangel University students interested in pursuing a medical career.

“You always want to strive to improve and make sure you are staying current with literature so you know what you are doing in Springfield is as good or better than what your patients could receive anywhere else,” he says.[[In-content Ad]]