Family Connections: The Volkemas

Family Connections: The Volkemas

At Valley Health, we love to highlight family members who work together and who share the same passion for patient care. Kevin Volkema, DO, MBA, works at Valley Health with his wife, Presley S. Volkema, MD. Kevin is the Regional Medical Director and a primary care physician at Valley Health Primary Care | Greenwood while Presley is a neonatologist.

Why did you choose to join Valley Health?

Kevin: We really believe God opened this door for our family. As Presley was finishing her training, it became clear that Valley Health and the Winchester area offered a unique opportunity for both of us to grow professionally while also being a wonderful place to raise our family. We feel incredibly fortunate to have landed here.

Presley: I grew up in Winchester. When I left for college, I didn't always imagine that I would come back home. Throughout my medical training, from Houston to Chicago, I realized that my true passion in medicine is being at the bedside caring for these tiny babies, and just as importantly, caring for their families. When Kevin and I met and began building a family of our own, I started to realize that perhaps the best place to do that was right here, back home.

There is something incredibly meaningful about caring for the babies and families of the community that raised you. It gives my work a whole new sense of purpose and passion.

What do you like about Valley Health?

Kevin: The people. We have been blown away by the kindness, compassion, and quality of the people at Valley Health. That became especially meaningful to us when our younger daughter, Mabel, was born and needed care in the NICU. The care she received was exceptional, and the team supported our entire family throughout her stay. That experience really embodied what we have come to appreciate about Valley Health: exceptional care provided by people who genuinely care about their patients and their families.

Presley: The culture and sense of community at Valley Health are what stand out to me most. This is an incredibly team-oriented hospital, and it truly feels like a family.

I've been fortunate to train at multiple top-ten children's hospitals, and I can honestly say that I have never been part of a more efficient, connected, and cohesive team when it comes to newborn resuscitations and the care of critically ill infants than the team here at Valley Health. We genuinely function as a family. There is a level of mutual respect, trust, and communication here that is difficult to replicate in a larger institution.

We fully understood just how special this community is when our now 10-month-old daughter, Mabel, was born, and we found ourselves on the other side of things. Mabel and I both experienced unexpected, severe, and life-threatening complications during her delivery at Inova. Once she was stable enough, we were able to transfer her from the Level IV NICU back home to our NICU at Winchester Medical Center. I can't adequately describe what a difference it made to be home, and to know that our baby girl was being cared for by people we loved and trusted. She wasn't just another baby. She was their baby. That is the kind of place this is.

We came here thinking we were choosing a place to build our careers. What we didn't realize was that we were coming back to, and becoming part of, a community that would carry us through one of the hardest seasons of our lives. If we can be for other families even a fraction of what this community has been for us, both professionally and personally, that would be our dream.

What do you like about working with your spouse at Valley Health?

Kevin: Working at the same health system feels very natural for us. We actually met while working together during our training at Northwestern, in the Emergency Department at Lurie Children's Hospital. There is something really special about getting to share our professional lives again, now at Valley Health.

And it's always a treat when our schedules line up and we can sneak in a quick Starbucks together at WMC!

Presley: Kevin and I actually met in residency when I was an intern and he was a rotating resident working in the pediatric emergency department in Chicago, so it has been really special to come full circle and now work together again as attendings. Honestly, most days feel like a "pinch me" moment that we were blessed to both land our dream jobs at the same institution.

Even though our specialties are on opposite ends of the medical spectrum, we still find ourselves bouncing ideas off of each other-whether it's quality improvement, data collection, or simply trying to solve a problem together.

Since the culture at Valley Health feels so much like a family, working alongside each other here feels like a natural extension of that. It really does feel like we ended up exactly where we were meant to be.

Interested in growing your career at Valley Health? Visit valleyhealthlink.com/careers to see current opportunities in your region.