All in the Family

Photos courtesy of the Mahan Family

How One Family’s Passion for Health Care Spans Generations

As a husband-and-wife Doctors of Pharmacy team who met in pharmacy school, Katie and Scott Mahan are an unusual enough story all on their own. But when you throw in their three children, each of whom is headed for a medical career, the family tale is truly unique. 

“Every night, over the dinner table, health care was discussed,” Katie said to explain the career theme that binds this family. “All we knew is what we did every day, and we discussed it every day. I do think that they saw the difference we were making in the community, helping people. We always strived to teach them to have servant hearts and to help people. I think that's what drew them to medicine.”

As for the parents in this tale, medicine beckoned to them at different points in their growing up. For Katie, it was love at first job when she worked at a pharmacy one summer. 

“My favorite subjects were always science and math and I knew I wanted a career in the health care profession,” she said. “Working in the pharmacy, I really loved the ability to help people using my math and science skills.”

Scott’s route was different; he started college as a business major and liked the business side of being in pharmacy. He also liked that it was a job he could take anywhere, even a small community like West Plains, his hometown.

“Pharmacy would allow me to come back to a smaller town like West Plains and make a decent living,” he said. “At the same time, I really liked the idea of helping people and helping the community.”

The couple’s three children are all studying to enter the medical profession themselves, although none in pharmacy. Their son, Mitchell, is in his first year of residency in Wichita, Kansas, with designs on practicing family medicine. Their daughter, Morgan, is in a doctoral program studying occupational therapy while their other daughter, Kirsten, is in graduate school studying speech disorders.

As if all that weren’t newsworthy enough, there is the matter of Scott and Katie essentially being in competition with one another for the majority of their careers. Katie, who’s been with Ozarks for 23 years, worked to help establish and grow the hospital’s pharmacies across its footprint starting in 2019, bringing direct competition to Scott, who worked in a local pharmacy until joining the health system three years ago. 

The duo chuckle about their unique career paths yet having celebrated 27 wedding anniversaries they seem none the worse for wear. In fact, both of them said having a spouse who understood what each day could bring has been a blessing.

“I think it's been incredibly helpful,” Katie said. “Even though for the greater part of our careers he was working at another location here in town, we both understood what each other goes through all day long. Now that we're on the same team, working for Ozarks Healthcare, we discuss the best way to care for patients, what changes do we need to make in the pharmacy to better care for patients in the community? What does this community need that we don't have?”

“It's been great, you know,” Scott agreed. “I came from the independent world where you had to watch things very closely to be able to survive. I also had a very good boss who gave us the time to take care of patients. It's been really nice to not compete against my wife and to work with her now, bouncing all these ideas around about how to help the community and make the pharmacy the best that it can be.”