For Kevin Sullivan, becoming a doctor wasn’t always a sure thing, definitely not at 43 years old.
When he graduated from Baker University 20 years ago, it was with a degree in accounting and business. And that’s the kind of work he did for years.
He was even going back to school to become a Certified Public Accountant with his eye on future potential Chief Financial Officer roles.
That is, until his oldest daughter Leighton got sick at age 2 in 2013. After that, everything nonessential got put on the back burner.
It started with a bacterial E. coli infection, which led to Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, a very serious but rare complication that caused her kidneys to fail.
After that, she started having dozens of strokes.
“She was then fully dependent, so she had permanent disability,” Sullivan said.
In the end, she spent months in the hospital, a large portion of it in pediatric intensive care, and had to return after she started having uncontrollable seizures and was diagnosed with infantile spasms — a rare form of childhood epilepsy. It took several months of trial and error, and traveling to specialists across the country, for Leighton to get relief, ultimately through a ketogenic diet plan.
In the end, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
Sullivan felt a tug toward medical school
Kevin (left) and Leighton Sullivan about 12 years ago. Photo courtesy Kevin Sullivan.
During all of that, Sullivan’s wife, Saxony — who had just had their second daughter Charleigh — left her job to spearhead Leighton’s care, so it was on Sullivan to ensure the family had a stable income and health insurance.
He felt something of a pull to go to medical school, inspired by the doctors, nurses and caregivers who had participated in his daughter’s care, but it didn’t feel like the right time.
Their family was still figuring out their new normal and had decided to leave their home in Wichita to move closer to Children’s Mercy Hospital, ultimately landing in southern Overland Park.
Plus, the family was still growing. After Charleigh, the Sullivans welcomed two more children, boys Owen and Sloan.
Still, Sullivan wasn’t able to shake what felt like a calling to pursue a career in medicine.
“I just kind of fixated on that,” he said.
So, in 2017, at 35 years old, he enrolled at Johnson County Community College to take all the science classes he’d need to get ready for medical school, like biology, chemistry and organic chemistry.
“It was kind of like it’s now or never type thing, it kind of felt like,” Sullivan said.
Between night school and summer classes while still working in accounting, he finished that in a few years and decided to apply for medical school officially, sending in applications to Kansas City University’s Osteopathic Medical School and the University of Kansas School of Medicine.
Though he didn’t get in at first, Sullivan did get into the master’s Biomedical Sciences program at Kansas City University. Now, he sees that as fortuitous.
“I’m glad I had that, because I think it would have been very difficult to succeed in medical school without it,” Sullivan said. “I do feel like the master’s program was something that I needed.”
In particular, he feels that the master’s program helped prepare him for the speed at which you have to learn in medical school. It didn’t hurt either that a lot of the first year of medical school covered a lot of the topics that were fresh in his mind from his master’s.
(Around the same time he was preparing to start medical school, his wife, Saxony, reentered the workforce, going back to work as an exercise physiologist in the Saint Luke’s health system.)
Still, medical school was hard with “information just kind of coming at you like a fire hose.” But, he fell into a routine that involved several solo study sessions at the Panera at Bluhawk.
“It is rigorous, and it’s demanding, but it’s very rewarding, and I enjoyed every minute of it,” he said. “It was worth every bit of it.”
Sullivan drew inspiration from doctors along the way
Kevin Sullivan (center) with his family finding out he’d matched for a residency in Kansas City. Photo courtesy Kansas City University.
Over the years, Sullivan said, dozens of doctors, nurses and everyday people have helped support him and his family.
However, through the acute phases of Leighton’s sickness and later through medical school, Sullivan says there’s been one doctor in particular who inspired him. That’s Jenni Linebarger, who he said “has been a constant source of encouragement.”
They first met when Leighton was at Children’s Mercy and receiving palliative care — a medical specialty that focuses on symptom relief for patients who are living with serious conditions — overseen by Linebarger’s team.
Linebarger, a former pediatric patient at Children’s Mercy herself who had suffered from Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome at age 10, was the first physician to work on the palliative care team at the hospital. Leighton was also her first palliative care patient who had the same illness that she did as a child.
“She, as a little girl, really has stayed with me since the day I met her,” Linebarger said.
When she heard Sullivan was planning to start medical school a few years ago, she was a cheerleader for him. And when it came time for Sullivan to start looking at residency programs, Linebarger said it was a “no-brainer” to write him letters of recommendation as well.
Linebarger calls Sullivan’s profession of inspiration “reciprocal” since she feels inspired by him, too.
“We need more Kevins in the world,” she said. “I find him inspiring to transition careers after 15 years. … I think that’s inspiring to really turn that story into a different type of life-changing event than some people might.”
Sullivan will do his residency in Kansas City
Kevin Sullivan graduated from medical school on May 8. Photo courtesy Kansas City University.
Sullivan, now 43, is officially Dr. Sullivan after graduating from medical school on May 8 and matching for a dual residency at UMKC and Children’s Mercy in internal medicine and pediatrics.
“As much as I enjoy and am proud of what I’ve accomplished, I recognize that there’s so much more to do, and I’m ready to get started doing that,” he said.
Though he’s still got four years of residency ahead of him, he’s got his eye on becoming a pediatric primary care physician who specializes in caring for children with complex medical needs.
“I’m trying to keep them well as long and as often as possible,” he said, adding that he wants to do what he can to keep his patients out of the hospital.
It’s all sort of bittersweet for Sullivan; he doesn’t regret going to medical school and pursuing this path later in life.
However, he can’t help but think about Leighton and everything that’s happened to her; how it was her health journey that brought him to this point.
“One of the happiest times of my life was when she was born, and as she was growing up, and as she was a little kid, so I still like to look back at that,” Sullivan said, “but if you look back too long, it just gets depressing.”
Leighton has reached her own milestones recently, too
The Sullivan family. Photo courtesy Kevin Sullivan.
Now, 14, Leighton has become pretty stable day-to-day, and she recently graduated from eighth grade in the Blue Valley School District. She’s also officially graduated from palliative care at Children’s Mercy, though she still sees Linebarger from time to time.
“We try to accept it, be happy about what we got to experience when we got to experience it, and be grateful that she still has the opportunity to go to middle school and do those things even after everything that she went through,” Sullivan said.
She does require a wheelchair and a feeding tube, and she isn’t able to speak. Leighton also needs medications multiple times a day and has a nurse with her daily.
The Sullivans have turned the dining room in their home into a room for Leighton, where she has everything she needs.
“It’s kind of her dorm room, is what it looks like,” Sullivan said.
“Fortunately, we haven’t had a lot of hospitalizations recently, so she’s not been in the hospital a lot,” Sullivan said, adding that a spinal surgery last year for severe scoliosis has helped improve her quality of life a great deal.
Leighton is also participating in a medical study through Children’s Mercy that’s trialing the use of an old Parkinson’s Disease medication to help with children who have movement disorders like hers.
“We’re always on the lookout for medical improvements or whatever we can do to try to get her that quality of life,” Sullivan said. “It is very much a constant pursuit.”
And at the end of the day, he wants to use his experience as a parent of a child with complex medical needs to help others.
“Being able to contribute and use what we’ve experienced to help others is kind of the only way I feel like I’m able to continue moving forward,” Sullivan said.
Keep reading: Amid Kansas’ growing measles outbreak, this JoCo family got their youngest an MMR booster early