MEMPHIS, TN — July 2025|Decades after battling cancer as a toddler, Surekha Murti-Fehr has found herself on the other side of the treatment room—helping others navigate their own cancer journeys. Diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at the age of two, Murti-Fehr spent much of her early childhood undergoing treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. Her earliest memories are not of toys or playgrounds, but of hospital stays, hair loss, and long hours spent watching television beside her father, Dr. Gopal Murti, then the director of Scientific Imaging at the very institution working to save her life.
Murti-Fehr’s treatment stretched over five years. Though her family was warned of possible long-term side effects—including delays in physical and intellectual development—she defied those expectations. She not only recovered but went on to thrive academically and professionally. After earning her doctorate in physical therapy, she built a life in East Tennessee, where she married, started a family, and began practicing in a private orthopedic clinic.
Initially focused on musculoskeletal therapy, her career trajectory changed unexpectedly during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the clinic’s certified lymphedema therapist left, her employer asked her to train in the specialty. Lymphedema therapy, often required for cancer patients coping with lymphatic swelling after treatment, wasn’t something she had considered before. Murti-Fehr agreed to try it with the option to return to orthopedics if it didn’t feel like the right fit. At first, she admitted, the work didn’t quite resonate with her.
That changed when a local medical provider contacted the clinic in need of lymphedema services for cancer patients. Murti-Fehr volunteered to take on the referrals. What began as a reluctant detour quickly became her professional calling. Today, she works exclusively with breast cancer patients, treating survivors every day with the kind of empathy and insight that only someone who has walked a similar path can offer.
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“Something I didn’t think I was going to like at all turned into this,” she reflected. “Now, my dream of helping cancer patients has finally come full circle.”
For her parents, Gopal and Aruna Murti, watching their daughter embrace a career so closely aligned with her own survival story is both emotional and affirming. Gopal recalled the fear he felt when Surekha was first diagnosed in the early 1980s—a time when survival rates for ALL were significantly lower than today’s 94% at St. Jude. Despite the odds and the anguish, he now sees his daughter not just as a survivor but as someone who has transformed her experience into a lifelong commitment to others.
Although she no longer lives in Memphis, Murti-Fehr’s connection to St. Jude remains deeply personal. She speaks of the hospital not just as the place where she received treatment, but as the reason she’s alive today. Her story is a testament to the institution’s mission, founded in 1962 by entertainer Danny Thomas, to treat the world’s sickest children regardless of race, religion, or the ability to pay. Families at St. Jude never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing, or food, allowing them to focus solely on the health and healing of their children.
Now, as a physical therapist treating cancer survivors, Murti-Fehr continues the work that once saved her. Her story, marked by resilience, gratitude, and a return to purpose, reflects the full-circle journey of a patient who became a healer.