Joe and Kathleen Funk

Now emergency medicine physicians in Atlanta, they made it through medical school with support from their families and those around them.

“It wasn’t big things, just little things that kept us going when we were at our lowest points,” Kathleen says.

Led by their desire to pay it forward, Joe and Kathleen began giving to student scholarships through Dell Medical School’s annual fund. When they later visited the school, they met with Kayla Headley, one of the students who benefited from their generosity.

“We have amazing stories about countless people along the way who helped us out,” Kathleen says. “We want people like Kayla to have those stories, too.”

Joe and Kathleen’s visit reaffirmed their support for Dell Med’s work, motivating them to establish the Drs. Joseph P. and Kathleen G. Funk Endowed Scholarship in Medicine. The fund will leave a lasting legacy, supporting medical students for generations to come.

“We’re fortunate to have had opportunities and that we’ve attained our dreams,” Joe says. “When I see students with that energy and drive, the last thing you want is to have that squashed simply because they don’t have the money. I hope our gift will help them so they don’t have to wonder if they’ll have to drop out because they don’t have the funds.”

The couple first met while volunteering together shortly after high school. They served as early members of an EMS program Joe’s father developed in the 1970s, after realizing the critical need for emergency care services in Schertz, their small hometown just outside San Antonio. They soon discovered a shared passion for emergency medicine. Those early years working side by side in the field deepened their relationship and sparked their desire to pursue medical school together.

Their comradery strengthened not only their personal relationship but their academic experience as well. “In medical school, it was great because we could wake up in the middle of the night and bounce things off each other,” Joe says.

The Funks, who graduated from McGovern Medical School, part of the UT Health Science Center at Houston, became interested in Dell Medical School when they learned of its innovative approach to medical education. When they visited Dell Med, they saw firsthand how the school is training students to become a new kind of doctor.

“Kayla isn’t just a young person wanting to change the world. She really has passion for her community,” Kathleen says. “She sees that her education is building her leadership skills so she can change health care for the better, wherever she goes. That kind of fire is contagious.”

As members of Dell Med’s Founders Circle, Joe and Kathleen are deeply invested in the school’s mission to revolutionize the way people get and stay healthy. They want to see the innovations in medical education and empathetic, patient-centered health care developed at Dell Med spread across their home state of Texas and beyond — especially in emergency medicine.

With nearly 30 years of practice, the Funks have seen just about everything. Patients often come to the Emergency Department with overlapping injuries and underlying conditions that require careful, and even creative, examination and diagnosis.

In one case, they saw a patient who was 36 weeks pregnant and complaining of chest pain. Although chest pain is common among pregnant women, Kathleen listened to the patient’s concerns and felt something else could be wrong. She ordered a CT scan.

“It’s a pretty unusual test to order on someone that far along in her pregnancy,” Kathleen says, “but we found out this woman — who had no reason to have it, no family history or anything — had an aortic dissection. Her entire aorta was splitting lengthwise, extending from her heart all the way below her kidneys. If she had gone into labor, she might have died right there on the table.”

They quickly transferred her to high-risk fetal and vascular specialists who performed a nine-hour operation. The Funks’ willingness to think outside the box and their timely diagnosis saved the lives of both the mother and child. Kathleen and Joe say experiences like this underscore why physicians must listen to their patients and not dismiss their concerns, even if their symptoms seem minor.

“Unfortunately, with the way our medical system has developed, it’s focused more on how many patients you can get through in an hour or what you can bill for,” Joe says. “But if you actually listen, the patient will tell you what is wrong and what they need. You have to listen to your patients.”

Kathleen agrees, adding that compassion is key to building a solid relationship with her patients.

“Day to day, people invite us into their most private and painful moments with such a degree of trust,” she says. “That has never stopped touching me. In those situations, I realize I am in a place nobody else can stand in at that moment. They’re opening up and trusting me with the hardest part of their life.”

The Funks believe the recognition and development of this special trust between doctors and their patients is vital to improving health care. When they heard about the steps Dell Medical School is taking to redesign the reimbursement structure, improve patient experiences and outcomes and encourage empathy among its students and faculty, they wanted to learn more.

“When we saw Dell Medical School and listened to Dean Clay Johnston talk about the innovations and changes they wanted to make, we agreed that a change in medicine was long overdue,” Joe says. “We came down to visit the school to see if it was true — if they were really doing what they were saying they wanted to do.

“Afterwards, we were thoroughly impressed. We said to each other, ‘This is going to change the way people are trained in medicine.’ ”

Joe and Kathleen are no strangers to bold ideas, especially when it comes to improving medical education.

“It’s always exciting to be a part of something new,” Kathleen says. “It doesn’t ever scare us that it hasn’t been done that way before — that’s been the story of our lives.”

Throughout the years, they have played a part as students, educators and physicians in developing emergency medicine into the recognized specialty it is today.

“Initially, emergency medicine was the third wheel. Traditional medicine was such a mix of people who absolutely did not understand what it was about,” Joe says.

When Joe and Kathleen began clinical rotations in their third year of medical school, they discovered there was no student rotation offered in the Emergency Department for students interested in emergency medicine. As they considered other clinical specialties, they kept coming back to emergency medicine. They approached the department head and requested to do rotations in the Emergency Department. As a result, there is now a permanent student rotation in the Emergency Department. Two years later, they became interns in the first emergency medicine residency class at what is now the Department of Emergency Medicine at McGovern Medical School, the busiest Level I trauma center in the United States.

Because of their breadth of knowledge and experience, Joe and Kathleen now frequently serve as invaluable consultants for other specialty physicians, such as cardiologists and neurologists. Their eye for detail and commitment to a whole-patient health care approach have improved the clinical outcome for many patients over the years. However, they worry the status quo in medicine often inhibits physicians from taking the time to fully assess patients’ individual needs.

“Right now, the business model in medicine is failing patients and physicians,” Kathleen says. “There are such high physician burnout rates because they have to show up, run the numbers, get out, and make money. It’s not patient-centered.”

However, Joe and Kathleen have high hopes for the future of medicine — especially with Dell Med at the forefront, disrupting old, inefficient models of health care.

“Dell Med is creating a model that helps both the physicians in their longevity and the patients get a better experience,” she says. “I hope Dell Med gets the attention of the world and sets an example for how we can think outside the box to better serve patients and physicians.”

Published May 2018