After spending years away from the area training to be a podiatrist, the Manson native has returned to continue practicing her chosen medical specialty.

“It’s kind of neat to come back to the community,” she said.

She is the newest physician at Midwest Foot & Ankle Center. She will work two days a week at the center’s site in Jefferson and three days a week at its site in the Physicians Office Building West at the UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center campus.

The daughter of Dennis and Linda Sukovaty, she grew up on the family farm between Manson and Pomeroy in Calhoun County. She graduated from Manson Northwest Webster High School, where she participated in basketball, volleyball and track.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Dr. Kelsey Sukovaty, a podiatrist, looks at a model of a human foot and ankle. The Manson native is the newest doctor at the Midwest Foot & Ankle Center in Fort Dodge.

After graduating from high school, she went to the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls to earn her bachelor’s degree.

As an undergraduate, she knew she wanted to become a doctor, but she didn’t know what branch of medicine she wanted to work in. An academic adviser suggested that she look into podiatry. She did some research online and did a job shadow experience with Cedar Valley Podiatry Foot & Ankle Center in Waterloo. Right away, she knew that podiatry was the specialty for her.

“I guess I just kind of got hooked on the first day,” Sukovaty said.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree, she went to Des Moines University in Des Moines, where she earned her doctor of podiatric medicine degree. That was followed by a three-year residency in Waterloo. Sukovaty said she was doing surgery five days a week at Mercy and Allen hospitals in Waterloo,

Upon completion of her residency, she was hired by Cedar Valley Podiatry Foot & Ankle Center, the practice where she did her job shadow experience years earlier.

Dr. Mark Hartman of Midwest Foot & Ankle Center recruited her to come to Fort Dodge, which Sukovaty described as “kind of an unexpected surprise, but a very good one.”

And while she is working locally, she is still commuting from a distance. She and her husband, Dr. David Cain, a podiatrist in Ames, hope to get a home conveniently located to both of their offices. They have an 11-month-old daughter, Olivia.

As a podiatrist, Sukovaty cares for feet and ankles. She treats arthritis, diabetic complications that affect the feet, ingrown toe nails, vascular problems, fractures and Achilles tendon injuries. In the Waterloo and Cedar Falls area, she performed total ankle replacement surgeries and wants to do that procedure here. She said it is a newer and evolving surgery, but for patients who have it done “the quality of life afterwards is incredible.”

She is board certified in podiatric medicine and board qualified in foot and ankle surgery.

“I pride myself in working with the patient,” Sukovaty said. “I pride myself in educating my patients on what’s going on and working together with them to formulate a treatment plan that works for them.”

“There’s no problem too big or too small in the foot and ankle that I’m not comfortable in treating,” she added.