Coming Home to Care

For Dr. Kendra Conkright, a physi­cian with Quin­cy Med­ical Group’s Pitts­field Clin­ic, health­care is more than just a pro­fes­sion — it’s a way to give back to the com­mu­ni­ty that shaped her. Grow­ing up in Grig­gsville, Illi­nois, just a few miles from Pitts­field, Dr. Conkright’s small-town roots laid the foun­da­tion for her career and patient-focused approach to medicine.

“My broth­er and I spent many hours rid­ing our bikes and play­ing in our com­mu­ni­ty,” Dr. Conkright recalled. ​“We knew vir­tu­al­ly every­one, and they knew us. Every­one looked out for each oth­er and sup­port­ed each other.”

Dr. Conkright’s inter­est in health­care start­ed ear­ly, dri­ven by her own expe­ri­ences as a child with a con­gen­i­tal con­di­tion in her hands. 

“I spent a lot of time receiv­ing med­ical care grow­ing up,” she explains. ​“That inter­ac­tion with the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty def­i­nite­ly sparked my inter­est in the med­ical field. My Plas­tic and Recon­struc­tive sur­geon, Dr. Robert Rus­sell, sup­port­ed my inter­est in medicine.”

Deter­mined to make a dif­fer­ence, Dr. Conkright com­mit­ted her­self to gain­ing the knowl­edge and skills need­ed to pro­vide excep­tion­al care to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties like the one she calls home. 

“Rur­al com­mu­ni­ties are often large dis­tances from spe­cial­ty care. It was very impor­tant to me to be as well-round­ed and pre­pared as pos­si­ble. Get­ting that edu­ca­tion ini­tial­ly involved me liv­ing long dis­tances from my home­town to attend some of the best insti­tu­tions,” she shared. 

Return­ing to her roots in Pitts­field was a nat­ur­al next step for Dr. Conkright. 

“Two things moti­vat­ed me to come back home: the desire to give back to my com­mu­ni­ty and the desire to raise my chil­dren in the same sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment that I had grow­ing up,” she said. 

With two chil­dren of her own, Gre­ta, 12, and Jake, 16, Dr. Conkright and her hus­band were com­mit­ted to offer­ing them the safe­ty and close-knit envi­ron­ment that made their own child­hoods special.

For Dr. Conkright, the most ful­fill­ing part of prac­tic­ing med­i­cine in her home­town is the per­son­al bond she shares with her patients.

“Tak­ing care of peo­ple who have known you for your whole life is like tak­ing care of your fam­i­ly,” she shared. ​“It is very reward­ing to improve the health of peo­ple you are close to and with whom you have per­son­al relationships.”