Schulte Named “Young Healthcare Executive of the Year”
Mark Schulte, FACHE, president, Monument Health Sturgis (S.D.) Hospital, was honored today as the recipient of the Robert S. Hudgens Memorial Award for Young Healthcare Executive of the Year.
The award honors outstanding achievement in the field of healthcare management and is given to an exceptional healthcare executive who is younger than 40, is an ACHE Fellow and holds a CEO or COO position in a healthcare organization.
In his acceptance speech, Schulte said he is honored to receive this award for Young Healthcare Executive of the Year. The following is an edited excerpt from Schulte’s speech:
I’d like to thank all those who helped me get to where I’m at today. I greatly appreciate the many mentors I have had throughout my career. I’d especially like to thank my parents for keeping me grounded in the work I do and my wife for her all that she does behind the scenes. This award doesn’t happen without all your support.
I’m especially proud today that I’m a member of ACHE, an organization that makes an effort to recognize great leaders no matter which part of the country you’re from, or how small an institution you may work for. It is nice to know that they can recognize the merits of a member from Sturgis, South Dakota, as much as they’ll recognize members in big cities like Chicago.
For those who don’t know me, I am a proud South Dakotan. Living here for most of my life has created a passion for this state and what it means to its residents. I’m the first person from South Dakota to win this award, one of hopefully many more to come. I also believe that I’m from one of the smallest hospitals to ever be recognized by ACHE. You have my promise that I will wear that as a badge of honor.
I’ve always been in rural medicine. It’s been my passion to continue to provide healthcare services to places that would suffer great hardship without their hometown hospital. In critical moments when seconds count, it’s so important that these communities have a high-performing hospital. The calling to lead a rural hospital is powerful.
I’m very proud of the work that I’ve been able to do with our team in Sturgis, where we are known for our ability to rise to the moment no matter the circumstances. Whether it is a blizzard that dumps feet of snow or planned disaster known as the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, our team at Monument Health is amazing.
I want to leave our early careerists with some advice as you embark on your leadership journey. Throughout my career, I have always tried to live by the mantra of “Leave Things Better Than How You Found Them.” And I promise to always try to do just that. My team in Sturgis will note that I’m not a passionate speaker that inspires them each day. Yet, they know that I come to work with one thing in mind: What can I do to move my organization forward? That mindset sets the stage for not only my leadership style, but also that of my organization. With a little bit of humor and luck mixed in with hard work, we have done some amazing things here. Constant dedication will pay dividends for you and your career.
In closing, I want to note that we all stepped up to the plate to meet the challenges of COVID-19. Community leaders relied on us to provide answers to questions on some very difficult topics. We are not only leading our caregivers and organizations through this unimaginable challenge, but we are also leading our communities. As the pandemic became political, we remained constant in our dedication to those who relied on us. This crisis has further reiterated the importance of healthcare in our society. Now is the time to use the momentum we have built to tackle other challenges in our country such as racism, poverty and equality. Those in healthcare have become some of the most trusted members in our communities. The opportunity is in front of us, and let’s use that to our advantage to address these challenges and those still to come.
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Keehan Named Honorary Fellow
Sister Carol Keehan, DC, HFACHE, was selected as an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and honored during today’s Convocation Ceremony.
Honorary Fellowship is a special category of ACHE membership. It recognizes individuals who have rendered distinguished service in the healthcare field or in related areas and who would not ordinarily be ACHE members.
Keehan worked as a nurse, managed the revitalization of a Washington, D.C., hospital and led the Catholic Health Association of the United States. She retired from her duties as the ninth president and CEO of the CHA in June 2019.
In a recorded acceptance speech played at the virtual Congress on Healthcare Leadership during the Convocation Ceremony, Keehan told the more than 700 new Fellows who were being inducted that they worked a lot harder to earn their FACHE than she did, “and I congratulate you.”
The following is an edited excerpt from Keehan’s acceptance speech:
I am in awe of such a large group achieving this in the year we have just experienced in healthcare—that is amazing. Bravo, you and your families should be especially proud of this important achievement. Thank you for letting me be part of your class of inductees.
To be part of this fellowship, even in an honorary capacity, pleases me so much because it puts me in the company of professionals who have worked to attain the highest level of knowledge and education.
Over the years I have witnessed the competence that ACHE helps develop in young people who are striving to be leaders in healthcare. It is just a wonderful organization to be a part of.
I have always been tremendously proud of the people in U.S. healthcare. Sometimes I think the complexity of the U.S. system of financing healthcare overshadows the work of healthcare professionals, but COVID-19 has made huge changes in that. Look at the outpouring of support for healthcare workers, from playing music on balconies in New York City, to tons of food delivered to emergency departments and intensive care units, to testimonials in every media [outlet].
The American public is in awe of the sacrifices and competence of U.S. healthcare providers. They remain so grateful for the intensive care given but also for the creativity and commitment to connecting loved ones with patients who were severely ill or dying. For many, knowing that a provider held a parent or spouse’s hand as they died was an incomparable comfort. They have recognized that they owe a great deal to all of these medical professionals here in the U.S.; whether it is the executive trying to hunt down PPE, or those leaders doing everything they could to support physicians and nurses who were absolutely inundated with patients and other challenges. I believe Americans today are enormously grateful for the outstanding services they have received from those who dedicated everything they had to help make people better ... those who risked their own lives, and sometimes lost their lives, in the effort to save others.
So, being named an honorary Fellow, and being placed in the company of these amazing people being inducted today, is an incredible honor for me. Congratulations to you all, you are the best. And you have made us all so very, very proud and grateful.
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Congratulations to These Publishing Award Winners
Join us in celebrating the winners of the 2021 ACHE Publishing Awards. These individuals have written and published outstanding books and articles that have contributed to healthcare management literature.
The National Academy of Medicine was named the winner of the 2021 James A. Hamilton Book of the Year Award for Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being (National Academies Press, 2019). The 2020 Hamilton Award went to Jonathan Burroughs, MD, FACHE, and an ACHE faculty member, for Essential Operational Components for High-Performing Healthcare Enterprises (Health Administration Press, 2018).
Nancy M. Schlichting, FACHE(R), won ACHE’s 2021 Dean Conley Award for her article “Succession Planning in Healthcare: Myths, Realities, and Practical Advice,” published in the summer 2020 issue of Frontiers of Health Services Management. Stephen A. Purves, FACHE, was awarded the 2020 Conley Award for this article.
ACHE’s 2021 Edgar C. Hayhow Award went to Beth A. Lown, MD; Andrew Shin, MD, JD; and Richard N. Jones, ScD, for their article "Can Organizational Leaders Sustain Compassionate, Patient-Centered Care and Mitigate Burnout?" published in the November/December 2019 issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management. The 2020 Hayhow Award winners were Gary J. Young, JD, PhD; Stephen Flaherty, PhD; E. David Zepeda, PhD; Simone Rauscher Singh, PhD; and Sara Rosenbaum, JD, for this article.
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Upcoming
Fireside Chat With Anthony S. Fauci, MD
On Wednesday, Anthony S. Fauci, MD, will join Deborah J. Bowen, FACHE, CAE, for a conversation about up-to-date information on efforts to combat the pandemic and what healthcare leaders need to know now as they continue to care for patients and communities.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and Bowen, president and CEO of ACHE, will discuss Fauci’s own leadership journey and the important role healthcare leaders play in leading during this time of crisis and building community trust as we continue to move toward a post-pandemic world.
This session begins at 11:15 a.m. and runs until 11:55 a.m.
Add to your agenda. Please be sure to complete the session evaluation available in the virtual platform.
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Gintzig Commemorative Address: The Other Wes Moore—One Name, Two Fates
Decorated veteran and Rhodes scholar Wes Moore will explore, Wednesday, the fine line between success and failure in our communities and in ourselves.
Moore is the keynote speaker at the Leon I. Gintzig Commemorative Address, to be held from 12:10–1:00 p.m. Moore will talk about two boys named Wes Moore who were born blocks apart and within a year of each other in Baltimore. Both grew up in similar neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, social entrepreneur and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence?
Join Moore, a New York Times bestselling author and CEO at Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty organizations in the country, to explore the fine line between success and failure in our communities and in ourselves through the power of personal responsibility and its role in making positive choices.
Add to your agenda. Please be sure to complete the session evaluation available in the virtual platform.
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