Stepheny D Berry, MD

Dr. Stepheny Berry is a double board-certified surgeon who specializes in trauma, surgical critical care, emergency general surgery and general surgery, collectively known as the specialty of acute care surgery (ACS).

Dr. Berry is a member of the acute care surgery team at The University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City. The surgeons of the ACS team work with students, residents, fellows, nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) to provide comprehensive trauma and surgical care to patients who may arrive to the hospital through the Emergency Department or are met by our comprehensive surgical care team for elective general surgery.

As an acute care surgeon, Dr. Berry cares for a vast array of surgical diseases, including gallbladder problems, appendicitis, bowel obstruction, abdominal and groin hernias, soft tissue injury or infection, as well as injury to the liver, spleen, intestines, ribs and lungs. Patients who require admission to the surgical intensive care unit (SICU) remain under the care of acute care surgeons who are also board-certified in surgical critical care. In the SICU, acute care surgeons manage the ventilator (breathing machine) as well as medications to support blood pressure, antibiotics, pain and sedation. Acute care surgeons perform bedside procedures such as central line placement (large IVs), bronchoscopy (to clear the lungs), tracheostomy (surgically placed breathing tube) and gastric tubes (feeding tubes).

Acute care surgeons help coordinate the care of injured patients and may consult colleagues from other departments such as orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, vascular surgery or interventional radiology, depending on the type and severity of illness or injury. Acute care surgeons provide care for patients from hospital admission through hospital discharge and routinely see patients after a hospitalization.

Dr. Berry is an associate professor of surgery, trauma medical director and program director for the surgical critical care fellowship at the University of Kansas Medical Center, where she enjoys teaching residents, students and fellows who learn and work with her in the hospital setting. She is active in multiple regional and national professional organizations, where she serves on several committees. Her passion lies in the ongoing education of future acute care surgeons, process improvement initiatives to improve bedside care for patients and program development.

She earned her undergraduate degree from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, and graduated from medical school from the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She completed a residency in general surgery at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and completed her training in trauma and critical care at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center in Memphis.

She grew up in western Kansas and has a vested interest in ensuring excellent medical care in our state. While she loves caring for the critically ill and injured in her role as an acute care surgeon, Dr. Berry has found her toughest and most rewarding roles in life as a wife and mother. She spends all her spare time holding on for dear life on the back of her husband’s motorcycle, watching her adult stepson follow his dreams and trying to raise a respectable small human (her son).