Graduate named top young woman in state
A University of Kansas graduate, who virtually returned from the brink of death as a child to lead a normal, useful life as a future physician, was recently named Outstanding Young Woman of Kansas.
The story of Susan Kasper Harris, who has just completed her second year at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, is a modern medical success story.
Susan, born with a congenital heart defect, underwent open heart surgery in 1957. At the time of her surgery, such an
operation was an innovation, done only in rare cases. During the operation Susan's heart stopped completely and only the manual massage of her doctor kept it beating for an hour. When her heart began to function again, her recovery and the extent of damage were uncertain.
addition to almost normal health, she has been a better than average student at the University of Kansas, first as an undergraduate (she earned her degree in zoology in 1968) and now as a second-year medical student at the KU Medical Center.
Today, Susan is alive and seemingly quite well, with only the inability to run as fast as the average person as a reminder of her once precarious health. In
She was named Outstanding Young Woman of Kansas this year, one of 50 young women specially honored from the 5,000 named to Outstanding Young Women of America. Nominated by the Ellsworth Chapter of the American Association of University Women, Susan is from Wilson. Her parents are Mr. and Mrs. James Richard Kasper. Her husband is Dennis Harris, also a KU graduate (B'70). The couple lives in Kansas City.
While on the Lawrence campus, Susan lived in Miller Scholarship Hall, where she was an officer and representative to the Associated Women Students. In 1966 she went to Germany on the KU summer language institute. She held a National Science Foundation research grant the following school year. At the Medical Center, she is a member of the Student American Medical Association and the student elective committee.
June 9
1970 KANSAN 13
Back in 1958 (at age ten), Susan was a Valentine Girl of the American Heart Fund Campaign. In this capacity she traveled to Washington and participated in the kick-off ceremony for the campaign, meeting Mrs. Mamie Eisenhower and Dr. Paul Dudley White.
In some ways, Susan may have been luckier than a normal child.
Being subject to such serious illness at a young age no doubt helped her plan her career. As a patient at National Jewish Hospital in Denver, she began thinking about becoming a doctor.
"It is extremely hard for me to put a finger on what caused
Since graduation is still two years away, Susan has no definite plans concerning what area of medicine she will pursue.
the decision," says Susan. "I didn't just wake up one day and decide—I can't really give a specific reason. Of course, my being in the hospital contributed to it. It was my first encounter with medicine and the medical profession. In one way, I have a tremendous responsibility since
if innumerable people hadn't done so much for me when I was in the hospital, I wouldn't be here today."
Outstanding Kansas woman
Susan Kasper Harris, Outstanding Young Woman of Kansas for 1970, and Randy Johnson, second year medical student from Hutchinson, examine a diseased organ in a pathology laboratory at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. Susan, chronically ill as a child, has finished her sophomore year in medicine.
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