2014 Salute to Health Care Honoree: Dr. John Bumberry

Dr. John Bumberry knew early on he wanted to be a physician, but he wouldn’t have predicted his area of interest.

In high school at Kickapoo and going through Mercy’s Medical Explorers program, Bumberry says he never predicted that he’d become one of the area’s experts on breast cancer.

“I knew I wanted to be a surgeon, but I thought I’d be working on gallbladders,” Bumberry says.

While gallbladders and hernias are still part of his job through the Mercy Outpatient Surgery Center, the longtime Mercy Clinic physician is filling a niche in breast care.

Bumberry left Springfield to receive his medical training in the 1980s, followed by residency in Detroit. The Motor City is where he met his wife before the couple put down their roots in Springfield in 1993.

“I came back home to practice medicine and over the years have bypassed numerous opportunities to move elsewhere,” Bumberry says.

Through the years, the doctor has played a key role in helping shape Mercy’s breast cancer care services. In 2003, he started the genetic testing program at Mercy Hospital Springfield to help identify women at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer.

“At the time, there was no full-service testing option in southern Missouri and women from Springfield would have to travel to St. Louis, Kansas City, Tulsa or Little Rock to be tested,” he says. “In most cases, that meant they just did not get tested.”

Bumberry, an ardent supporter of women beginning early screening mammography at age 40, has spearheaded Mercy’s efforts to gain national accreditation for the program.

In 2008, Bumberry was named a member of the Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks Board of Directors. Last year, he was selected as the hospital’s breast program leader, and this year, he joined the Mercy Clinic Board of Directors and became the physician leader of the Breast Cancer Specialty Council for the entire Mercy system.

During his career and thanks to increased treatment options, Bumberry has seen a breast cancer diagnosis become a much less scary conversation.

“Twenty years ago, I was the bad guy who had to bring the bad news. And now, I’m often the good guy who can help them through this,” he says. “It is very rewarding. I really have developed a connection with these patients. When I see them, they will ask how my daughter’s doing because we know each other on that level.”

For 20 years, Bumberry has served as a volunteer physician at The Kitchen Clinic. He’s been a member of the Springfield Catholic Schools Board of Education and a guest lecturer at Missouri State University’s physician assistants training program.

At Mercy, he was the first surgeon to routinely perform laparoscopic cholecystectomies – a minimally invasive gallbladder removal – as an outpatient procedure and the first to regularly execute inguinal hernia repairs with local anesthesia.

“Today, both techniques are the typical way of doing these surgeries in Springfield,” he says.[[In-content Ad]]