CAPE GIRARDEAU PHYSICIAN IS ELECTED HEAD OF STATE MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

A Cape Girardeau surgeon has been elected president of the Missouri State Medical Association.

Dr. Melvin C. Kasten was installed as president of the 6,000-member association during its annual convention last weekend at Lake of the Ozarks.

Kasten, who served as vice president last year, is also a past chairman of the MSMA Council, on which he has served since 1983.

"I am semi-retired from my practice," Kasten said this week. "I have retired from my surgical practice and have moved my office to my home."

Kasten is also a member of the Cape Girardeau city council.

Kasten's new position will require some traveling.

"I'll be going to Illinois this month to attend the Illinois State Medical Association meeting," he said. "And I'll be traveling throughout Missouri over the next year."

Kasten, a native of Jackson, attended Southeast Missouri State University and is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine. He received his M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, Pa.

He served an internship at Columbia Hospital in Pittsburgh, from 1951 to 1952, and completed residency at St. Louis County Hospital in 1955.

He has been in private practice in Cape Girardeau since 1955.

Prior to graduating from medical school, Kasten served in the Air Force. As a first lieutenant in World War II, he flew 21 missions as a navigator and bombardier.

Kasten has been a member of the Missouri State Medical Association since 1955. He is also active in the American Medical Association and has served as alternate delegate or delegate from Missouri since 1972. He served the Missouri delegation as chairman from 1982 to 1986.

In 1980, he was elected vice councilor of the association from Southeast Missouri. He became the district's councilor in 1983; in 1991, he was elected chairman of the council. He was elected president-elect of the association in April 1992.

Kasten has been a fellow in the American College of Surgeons since 1967 and a member of the American Society of Law and Medicine. He is also a past president of the Missouri State Surgical Society and the Cape County Medical Society.

He served as a member of the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts in 1967, 1968, 1972 and 1976. He was president of the board in 1968.

His wife, state Rep. Mary C. Kasten (R-Cape Girardeau), has been a member of the Missouri House of Representatives since 1982.