40 Under 40: Ethan Ferrel, M.D.

Ethan Ferrel, M.D., a minimally invasive general surgeon at North Idaho Endoscopy and Surgical Specialists in Coeur d’Alene, always knew he wanted to be a surgeon. 

From a young age, Dr. Ferrel distinctly remembers being captivated his mother’s stories as an operating room nurse. 

Raised in Spokane, Dr. Ferrel has always been close to the healthcare community in the Inland Northwest. He began volunteering at Holy Family Hospital in high school and later worked nights and weekends as an ER technician while getting his bachelor’s degree at Gonzaga. Remaining in the area, Dr. Ferrel attended medical school at University of Washington’s WWAMI Program in Spokane. 

Dr. Ferrel then completed general surgical residency training in Phoenix, Arizona, and a robotic minimally invasive surgery fellowship in Hackensack, New Jersey. “I wanted to bring cutting-edge minimally invasive surgery back to my home region and help advance healthcare here in my community,” he says.

Dr. Ferrel is the first formally robotic-trained general surgeon in Idaho and is excited to bring the nation’s most advanced minimally invasive surgical techniques he honed in his training to the Inland Northwest. 

Now that he is home in North Idaho, Dr. Ferrel believes that his future is in Coeur d'Alene — continuing to raise his family, putting his kids through local schools, and offering cutting-edge robotic general surgical care to patients in the region. 

Dr. Ferrel hopes to provide more patients with a broader range of surgical options locally so fewer people need to travel out of the Inland Northwest to receive care.

Dr. Ferrel says that the influences that shaped his career are too numerous to mention, but attributes much of his success to a healthy sense of competition with his brother, who is a transplant surgeon at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.

If he could give his younger self one piece of advice, it would be that hard work and perseverance will be worth it in the end. 

"All the incredibly challenging times throughout college, medical school, residency and fellowship will eventually pay off and lead me back to where I want to be," he said.