Kootenai | Kootenai Health | Issue 3, 2021

Our Cardiothoracic Team Is GROWING Kootenai Health welcomes the newest addition to its cardiothoracic team By Devin Weeks Ever since she was young, Tori Lennox, M.D., has enjoyed working with her hands. “Growing up, my dad was a mechanic and a carpenter,” Dr. Lennox said. “I was always drawn to doing things with my hands, to where I thought I could fix a problem.” She grew up knitting and sewing, which would help prepare her hands and mind for someday saving lives on the operating table. “All those things fit in very well in surgery,” she said. “I feel very at home in that type of discipline.” Dr. Lennox is the newest addition to the cardiothoracic team at Kootenai Clinic. She was born in Vermont and then moved to rural, southern Oregon, where she enjoyed growing up away from the big city. She attended the University of Oregon in Eugene, where her parents still live. She majored in anthropology and Spanish in her undergraduate studies and returned to complete a post- baccalaureate program in biology and chemistry when she decided to go to medical school at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Dr. Lennox graduated as a medical doctor in 2015. Her journey to surgery As she studied medicine, Dr. Lennox developed a drive to not only fix problems, but to heal people and make profound differences in their lives. This led her to the cardiothoracic specialty, where nimble hands are necessary. She is completing her cardiothoracic surgery residency at the University of Washington (UW). “There are less than 30 programs in the country that offer direct pathways from medical school to cardiothoracic surgery; many people go into general surgery and then cardiothoracic surgery,” she said. “I was fortunate to go to UW, which has a direct program and accepts one person per year.” Surgery was a natural choice, she said. “I never gave it a second thought. It seemed like this was a way to really help someone and change their life. Once I did cardiac surgery, I never looked back.” 18