By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

Sunday was physician Casey McNeil’s first day in the emergency room at St. Luke Hospital in Marion.

McNeil will join the hospital full-time the middle of next year, but has already agreed to work part-time at Marion while he finishes residency at Smoky Hill Family Medicine residency program in Salina.

A Wellington native, McNeil said he and his wife, pharmacist Ashlee McNeil, wanted to settle their family in a town with 1,500 to 15,000 residents.

Marion’s school system, size, amenities, community support for education, and friendliness made the small town a great fit.

Marion’s location also is appealing. Ashlee has family in north Wichita, but McNeil didn’t want to live in a large city.

Marion is a convenient drive from Emporia, Newton, and Wichita, and doesn’t have the “big city” problems those towns do, he said.

McNeil earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Washburn University, then a master’s degree in genetics at the University of Kansas. He spent three years teaching genetics at Newman University before he decided to go to KU School of Medicine. He graduated in 2019.

McNeil said he especially likes caring for patients in the hospital.

“The thing I really like is sitting down with them and explaining how their medicines work,” he said. “I like patients who are vested in their own care.”

During his residency, McNeil’s duties rotate among such tasks as seeing patients in the clinic, working in obstetrics, and taking care of hospitalized patients.

Hospital CEO Jeremy Ensey said McNeil could complete his final two months of residency in Marion.

Ensey said the hospital has worked to recruit McNeil since September 2019. He first came to see Marion in December 2019, then returned last fall and winter.