About Doc
The doctor who stayed in Kansas.
Twenty-five years delivering babies in rural Kansas before the Senate. Fifth-generation Kansas farm kid, born in El Dorado. Still calls Kansas home.
Stacked credentials
Facts, not adjectives.
Kansas State University, B.S. Biochemistry Class of 1982
University of Kansas School of Medicine, M.D. Class of 1987
OB-GYN — 5,000+ deliveries Great Bend, Kansas · 25 years
Chairman of the Board, Great Bend Regional Hospital 14 years, from its surgical-clinic founding
Captain, U.S. Army Reserves 1984 – 1991
U.S. House — KS-01 ('Big First') 2017 – 2021 · 60 counties
U.S. Senator (R-KS) Sworn in January 3, 2021
Senate Agriculture · HELP · Budget · Finance Committee assignments, 119th Congress
Origin
El Dorado. Manhattan. Kansas City. Wichita. Great Bend.
Roger Marshall was born in El Dorado, Kansas. He grew up a fifth-generation Kansas farm kid.
He went to Kansas State for biochemistry, then on to the University of Kansas School of Medicine. He completed his OB-GYN residency at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.
Then he came home to Great Bend. He raised four kids there, ran a practice for twenty-five years, and represented the Big First in the House before Kansas sent him to the Senate.
The practice
Twenty-five years. Five thousand babies.
Doc joined St. Rose Health Center as an OB-GYN out of residency and stayed in Great Bend for twenty-five years. For most of those years he was the only OB-GYN in the area, on call twenty-four hours a day for every delivery and every baby-related emergency. He delivered more than five thousand babies and served as Chairman of the Board of Great Bend Regional Hospital for fourteen years, from its founding years as a surgical clinic through its growth into a full-service hospital.
A rural OB-GYN practice in central Kansas isn't the same job as one in Wichita or Kansas City. Women drove hours for prenatal appointments. The closest neonatal subspecialty was an hour away. When a baby was coming, he was the one going to the hospital, day or night, weekend or weekday. Doc's positions on rural hospitals, prior authorization, Medicare reimbursement, and telehealth come from those years and from those patients.
Community
Building things in Great Bend.
Outside the practice, Doc was building. He coached youth sports, taught Sunday school for more than twenty-five years at First Christian Church, and served as a longtime elder, deacon, and board chair there. He was a founding partner of Great Bend Regional Hospital, which started as a small surgical clinic before opening as a full-service hospital in 2009.
Most of the rest of what he built doesn't have his name on it. That was the point.
Military service
Captain, U.S. Army Reserves.
Doc served seven years in the U.S. Army Reserves as a medical officer, from 1984 to 1991, reaching the rank of Captain. His Senate work on the Major Richard Star Act and the PACT Act traces back to that service and to the patients and fellow soldiers he treated.
Family
Husband. Dad. Grandpa.
Doc married Laina, and together they raised four kids:
Lauren, Victor, Matt, and
Cal. They have three grandsons and two granddaughters.
They attended and were active members of
First Christian Church of Great Bend.
Family album · In Doc's words
At home in Kansas.
Two of my grandsons. The John Deere caps are not props. Laina. The best decision I ever made. A Saturday on the farm. Some of the crew, the dogs, the tractor. Three generations on our dock outside Great Bend. Walking the dirt road with the whole crew, dogs included.
U.S. Senators write and vote on federal laws. Each state has two senators, who serve six-year terms. Only the Senate confirms the President's nominees for judges and the cabinet, approves treaties, and holds impeachment trials.