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Indian American cancer survivor becomes therapist for woman cancer patients
Surekha Murti-Fehr says, "my dream of helping cancer patients has finally come full circle".
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Pranavi Sharma - Sat, 12, Jul 2025
- 23:39 EDT
- 19
Surekha Murti-Fehr / Courtesy Photo
Surekha Murti-Fehr, an Indian-origin physical therapist and childhood cancer survivor, has found her way back to helping patients like herself decades after receiving life-saving treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Murti-Fehr was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of two. Her earliest memories include being in the hospital, losing her hair, and watching television with her father, Gopal Murti, Ph.D., the retired director of Scientific Imaging at St. Jude.
She underwent treatment for five years. Since then, she finished school, married, had children, and earned a doctorate in physical therapy. Though she once considered becoming a doctor and hoped to work at St. Jude, she eventually settled in East Tennessee after meeting her husband during college.
“I really like physical therapy because of the one-on-one you have with the patients,” she said.
Murti-Fehr initially worked with orthopedic patients in a private practice. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her clinic’s certified lymphedema therapists left, and her employer asked if she would be willing to take up the training.
Though she was hesitant, she agreed, with the understanding she could return to orthopedics. “It was fine,” she said. “But I wasn’t really digging it.”
A turning point came when a local medical provider asked if she could take on some of their patients. “They sent her cancer patients,” she said. “Basically, it turned into my whole profession. So, now my practice is only treating breast cancer patients every single day. It’s really cool.”
“Something I didn’t think I was going to like at all turned into this, and now my dream of helping cancer patients has finally come full circle,” she added.
Her father, Gopal, still remembers how uncertain things were when she was first diagnosed. “When she got leukemia, it just killed me. I did not think she was going to survive,” he said.
At the time of her diagnosis in the early 1980s, survival rates were much lower. Today, the survival rate for all patients at St. Jude is 94 percent.
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