Bryan Darling, MD, enrolled at Emory University with the intention of becoming a veterinarian. But a chance encounter with a local, well-established veterinarian changed his mind.

 

"He pointed out that a veterinarian can take care of the pets of a population of 30,000, yet one doctor was needed for every 5,000 people," recalled Darling, a board-certified neonatologist at North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC) in Tupelo. "He said, 'so are you sure you want to go into veterinary medicine?' And it gave me something to really think about."

 

On staff at NMMC since 1997, Darling has enjoyed settling in one place to call home. Born in Topeka, Kansas, Darling and his two older brothers learned to adapt to changing environments because their dad, LeRoy, worked in a management role at Consolidated Freightways that kept the family moving. "By the time my older brother graduated from high school, he'd been to 12 different schools," said Darling, whose family lived in Missouri, Iowa, Indiana and Kentucky before settling in Atlanta when he was in the eighth grade. His mother, Bobbie, was a homemaker until his dad's retirement, when the family opened Village Flowers across the street from Piedmont Hospital.

 

At Redan High School in Stone Mountain, Ga., Darling received the prestigious Journal Cup, an award given by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to the best-all-around senior at each area high school. From the class of 275, he also received the "I Dare You Award," given to a high school senior "to dare them to succeed."

 

After reconsidering his major course of study at Emory University, where he was president of the Mortar Board, Darling earned two degrees in 1983—one in chemistry, another in psychology—just in case he wasn't accepted into medical school. "I didn't want to be a chemist," he said.

 

After graduating from the Medical College of Georgia, Darling completed his pediatric internship and residency at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Va. He completed a Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences neonatology fellowship in 1993. After fulfilling a 10-year commitment in the U.S. Navy, John Nading, MD, one of his attending physicians, recruited him to NMMC.

 

"If it wasn't for John, we might have never considered Tupelo," said Darling, whose wife, Lynn, an associate professor at the University of Memphis, earned a doctoral degree from the University of Maryland when he was stationed at Bethesda Naval Hospital. "Lynn's family was in Memphis, and my family is still in Atlanta, so Tupelo has worked well for both of us."

 

When Darling and his family relocated to Tupelo, their only child, Jordan, had just finished kindergarten. He turned 18 in August.

 

"We have one more year with him at home," said Darling, who like many doctors remains challenged balancing family and work. "With me spending so much time at the hospital, I feel like I've watched him grow up from afar. These past 13 years have just flown by."

 

Because he used to be fluent in French, Darling had wanted to participate in medical mission trips to Haiti. Six years ago, a chance conversation led Darling in another direction—medical mission work in the hill tribe communities of northern Thailand, and at a children's home with dozens of orphans that a church in Grenada, Miss., has supported for 15 years.

 

"The pastor's wife was one of our nurses and got ready to go on a trip there and I asked, 'do you need medicine?' and she said yes. I asked, 'do you need clothes for the children?' and again she said yes," recalled Darling. "I asked about school supplies, and she said they could use some. I couldn't drag much out of her, so I finally said, 'I want to go!"

 

The medical team sees patients of all sorts, including some with AIDS and fatal diseases that could be treated in the United States. "I remember one patient I was convinced had a brain tumor," he said. "The medical system there requires patients to pay up front if you're not a Thai citizen. She had no way to pay for her care, nor did we. All we could do was get her some sunglasses to help with her sensitivity to light. That just about killed me."

 

When NMMC began planning an expansion for its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Darling, who manages the unit, was brought in on the discussion. "The expansion was planned to increase our bed capacity, but no change in the open bay layout that we had," he recalled. "Then John (Nading, MD) said 'why don't we do something a little more state-of-the-art?' and then it became my baby."

 

Darling and others visited similar facilities and talked to parents who had been touched by the NICU.

 

"We not only talked to couples," he said, "but also to single parents and mothers whose babies had passed away, and asked if they had their druthers, how could we improve family-centered care?"

 

With Darling's ideas incorporated into the architectural blueprints, the new NICU at Women's Hospital opened on June 20. The second floor addition is designed for 34 newborns, and may accommodate up to 50. 

 

"We moved 26 babies from 4,000 square feet to 18,000 square feet, and everything went smoothly," Darling said of opening day. "The nurses were well-prepared and no one has complained about what we could have done differently. The new space is fabulous."