Kenyon Michael Railey graduates with MD like dad
By Brandon Gilliam
For the St. Louis American
On Friday, May 13, here in the heart of commencement season, students, staff, faculty, family and friends gathered at Powell Symphony Hall to celebrate the achievements of Saint Louis University’s graduating medical students.
As Kenyon Michael Railey, one of over 10 African-American students to graduate from SLU’s medical school this spring, became Dr. Railey, he joined another man in his family with that title.
“My father, Michael Railey MD, has been my mentor and my best friend all my life,” said the new Dr. Railey.
“He has taught me that thinking of yourself last is the best way to live life.”
Dr. Michael Railey, a family physician for 29 years who teaches at Forrest Park Hospital and works with the Transitional Residency Program, is a former St. Louis American Salute to Excellence in Health Care awardee.
Railey’s mother, Andrea Railey-Johnson, lead medical technologist at VA Hospital in St. Louis, was another medical mentor in the home.
According to the latest figures from the Association of American Medical Colleges, about 2,000 (or 11 percent) of the 17,6000 students admitted to U.S. medical schools in 2002 were underrepresented minorities, a category that includes African Americans. The association badly missed its goal of “3,000 by 2,000.”
Railey’s career path from here, he said, lies right in his father’s footsteps.
“I chose to enter the field of family medicine because it is the one specialty with the greatest potential to serve, while being the truest conduit for change within a community,” the younger Railey said.
“Family doctors hold a unique position; they stand at the front line of defense against many preventable illnesses and simultaneously serve as advocates and coordinators for those patients with specialist-supplemented care.”
The roots of his intent to serve, he said, run deep.
“Since I was young, my pursuit of a career in medicine has been based on a deep desire to help others and provide care in a place where poverty predominates,” he said.
“In addition, I wanted to find a career that combined my passion for community service with my love of science. Becoming a physician was the perfect way to fulfill both of these desires.”
He is aware that his earnestness sets him apart, somewhat, from many others his age, saying, “I have always considered myself something of a nerd.”
His mother would agree, by some definitions of “nerd.”
“From the moment he started school, you never had to tell him to do homework,” she said. “He always came in and did what he had to do.”
His educational path would take him through Lutheran North High School (class of 1997) and the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he joined Mizzou’s Zeta Iota Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and graduated with a degree in microbiology.
In medical school, he said, the hardest thing he “had to do” was learn anatomy.
“Medical school is not easy, period,” he said, but then added, “neither is being an electrician or an auto mechanic or a teacher. No one ever said life would be easy.”
Railey learned some tough lessons in the hard life of a working medical professional while serving as a clinic volunteer and lead coordinator for the Health Resource Center, a free health care clinic in North St. Louis City. There, Railey experienced first-hand how a medical practice is organized for an underserved population, which, he said, “reinforced my desire to become a family physician.”
He said this experience reminded him of the potential all primary care practitioners hold as prominent role models and deepened his understanding of health care barriers among the poor.
His grass-roots interest in serving people also is a product of the church.
Railey credited his pastor, Miki Merritt, of the New Cote Brilliante Church of
God, for “modeling what it means to be a man of God and a man of the people.”
Sounding more like a man on a mission than a nerd, Railey said, “I am only here because of those that went before me, and I owe it to those behind me to make a difference.”
Railey will make his first “difference” in family medicine at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., though eventually he plans to return to St. Louis and to open a private practice with his father.
“We need more black male physicians, especially in St. Louis. It is well-known that we live in a crisis of sorts concerning our young black men,” Railey said.
“If I could offer any words of wisdom, I would want to remind every black person that, one, we are the descendants of the ancestors that would not die and, two, never forget where you came from.”