Marcella Lynn Doderer
Arkansas Children’s Hospital President and CEO “Marcy” is not only on a first-name basis with patients, staff and almost everybody, she’s an administrator with a good bedside manner and willingness to pucker up for a pig.
Marcy Doderer is busy. Really busy. Consider — the president and chief executive officer of Arkansas Children’s Hospital should concern herself with the daily census of about 220 patients, the 1,000 to 1,200 kids who cycle through its clinics each day, the red wagon full of knit caps in the lobby. Such is the juxtaposition of details in this place.
How much time does she have for this interview? “Fifty-five minutes.” Whoosh. Hardly time to talk about Miracle Ball this Saturday, the capstone black-tie gala of the fall fundraising circuit that, in this case, is also the close of the hospital’s multitudinous centennial celebration. In fact, she emailed last week to say the hospital’s Century of Possibility campaign left its October goal in the dust.
“In October, we announced that we’d surpassed our Century of Possibility Campaign goal of $160 million. At the time, I challenged our staff, boards and community to help us reach $172 million by Dec. 31. I can’t believe it, but … we’ll be celebrating $176 million in gifts at Miracle Ball.”
Let’s not get too much Doderer at once. Let’s interrupt this visit for some words from Dr. Rob Steele, senior vice president and chief strategy officer for the hospital.
Steele, a pediatrician, was working at Sisters of Mercy Health Systems in Springfield, Mo., when his mother sent him an email.
“Hey, you’ll never guess who the new CEO is at Children’s.”
That was in May of 2013, when Doderer ( pron. DOH-durer) was chosen by the Children’s Hospital board to come (back) to Little Rock from Children’s Hospital of San Antonio to take over for the retiring Dr. Jonathan Bates.
Turns out the new CEO was an old classmate of Steele’s — that is, Little Rock Central High School, 1985.
They were also connected as young people through their church, Second Presbyterian. Their parents were good friends — both dads were physicians at Children’s — although as young people “we didn’t hang out much,” he says.
A connection was remade, and there was some catching up on friends during a time at Children’s Hospital when Doderer “was drinking from the fire hose,” Steele said.
When Doderer reorganized the executive team in late 2013 and early 2014, Steele became chief strategy officer. Such positions are relatively new in health care, he said.
“That’s very progressive on her part,” Steele said of Doderer. “You couldn’t find one five years ago.”
“One of her big strengths,” he said, “is recognition of building a strong team. I don’t own strategy — we all own strategy.” Doderer is insightful, Steele said. “Her first question wasn’t what needs to change. Her first question was what absolutely can’t change.”
Dr. Dan Rahn, chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, is on the Children’s Hospital board and so had a role in Doderer’s hiring.
“She does a terrific job of articulating the mission and vision and commitment to the health of the children of Arkansas,” he said.
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE CEO
Marcy Doderer is 47. She and her husband, Mark, have two daughters.
Mark Doderer is a computer programmer and consultant with a doctorate in computer science from the University of Texas at San Antonio. His dissertation was in bioinformatics. As Marcy Doderer explained, bioinformatics “takes huge amounts of health care data and turns it into real information.”
Emily is 19, and a sophomore at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. No major yet, but she’s leaning toward the sciences, her mom said. Katie is 16, a junior at Episcopal Collegiate High School, and a primary baby sitter for the Steele family. She also has a medical condition that brings her to Children’s Hospital several times a year.
Suffice to say the Doderer family has firsthand knowledge of what parents and patients and siblings go through when they pass through the doors of this hospital.
Suffice to say, too, that Marcy Doderer got the littlest bit emotional about halfway through those 55 minutes when the conversation turned to patients and their families, with whom she often visits.
“I’ll ask them how it’s going,” she said. “I’ll talk to anyone. I’m rarely at a loss for words.”
Parents should expect three things from the hospital, Doderer said: for their children to be kept safe, for their children to be healed, and for everyone to be nice.
“They obviously know if we’re treating them with respect and dignity. Ninety-nine percent of the time we are. If not, the family will let me know.”
A goal is to soon have a parents’ advisory board, and to have parents on committees that talk about safety and quality issues. “It’s important to have their voice at the table.”
Doderer grew up in Little Rock, and went to five district schools — McDermott, Carver and Gibbs elementary schools, Henderson Junior High, and Central High. Her father, Dr. J.B. Norton, practiced pediatric cardiology at Children’s for about 25 years. He and his wife, Chesta, are retired and live in Little Rock.
Even today, Doderer said, people say to her, “Your father took care of my children,’’ or ‘‘Your father took care of me.”
Marcy Doderer’s work life at Arkansas Children’s Hospital began as an intern when she was a student at Trinity University in San Antonio. Her exposure to the administrative side of health care gave her a lifelong ambition to lead a children’s hospital.
After earning a degree in finance at Trinity — with a minor in German — Doderer attended the University of Iowa, where she earned a master of arts in hospital and health administration in 1992.
Her administrative career took her to hospitals in Dallas; Paris, Texas, and San Antonio. Before taking the Children’s Hospital job, she was administrator of Children’s Hospital of San Antonio.
“Her commitment to patient safety and quality and what’s best for children comes across clearly in all settings,” Rahn said. “I think she has a clear view of what Arkansas Children’s Hospital needs to focus on in order to continuously improve and continuously increase its impact on the health of kids.”
UAMS and Children’s Hospital have a close relationship, sharing faculty and physicians.
“ACH is an important partner for UAMS and Marcy sees and values that,” Rahn said. “She values the academic medical center, and Arkansas Children’s Hospital as a component. She’s a strong supporter of how we align to advance our overall missions.”
“I have very frequent contact with her,” said Dr. G. Richard Smith, dean of the College of Medicine at UAMS, “and I find her bright, articulate, thoughtful and very experienced in her job.”
That experience is important to UAMS, Smith said, because most of the physicians who work at Children’s are faculty members at UAMS.
“I think she’s very experienced in knowing how to work with physicians and physician executives and the complexity of that. It’s not always a straightforward or obvious approach,” Smith said. “Marcy is a good leader, gracious in her leadership but also tough-minded. In my opinion the board chose a very capable person to lead the hospital.”
‘CALL ME MARCY’
Arkansas Children’s Hospital has three primary goals, Doderer said.
First, to improve child health in Arkansas. To that end the hospital collaborates with nonprofits and social services agencies of all kinds. It educates families about injury prevention, and has a statewide program to talk to teens about safe driving. It immunizes thousands of children every year.
Second, an expanded reach. Children’s Hospital and UAMS opened the Centers for Children in Jonesboro
“I think she’s very experienced in knowing how to work with physicians and physician executives and the complexity of that. It’s not always a straightforward or obvious approach. Marcy is a good leader, gracious in her leadership but also tough-minded.”
— UAMS College of Medicine Dean G. Richard Smith
in 2012. In 2007, a similar clinic was opened in Lowell. “We don’t want to be central Arkansas-centric,” Doderer said. “We believe we can deliver more care in more locations in the next few years. … We might look to southwest Arkansas, as an example.”
Third, “to truly be a toptier children’s hospital,” and be recognized as such.
“We’re a quiet, humble hospital, and it’s time to stand shoulder to shoulder with other hospitals. There’s no reason we can’t be recognized with them.”
Speaking of being recognized, Doderer is as she walks around the hospital, mostly by employees. Just the other day, she was at the cafeteria salad bar when an employee struck up a conversation about how to properly bring spirituality into a secular hospital system.
Her name tag says Marcy, and that’s how folks should talk to her.
“People call me Marcy at my insistence. I’m informal by nature.”
Eventually, she may get to talk with Tom Cotton, who soon will be sworn in as the junior U.S. senator from Arkansas. During his campaign against Sen. Mark Pryor, Cotton took a pounding over his House vote, in February 2013, against reauthorizing the Children’s Hospital Graduate Medical Education Program at its current funding level. When the vote came up again in April of this year, Cotton voted for the bill.
The program and the $6.4 million that goes to the hospital, Doderer previously said, are crucial to the education of pediatricians.
“Once he’s settled into his new role,” Doderer said, “we’ll take the opportunity to explain [the program’s] impact on the state and Children’s Hospital.”
Suffice to say that only the flintiest heart would not get the littlest bit emotional after spending time in the lobby, watching parents carry, push, walk and wheel their kids in and out of the hospital.
Over there, right past the sliding doors, is a red wagon full of brightly colored knitted caps. Basically, any preemie, infant, toddler or kid who needs a winter hat — red! white! blue! green! — stepping out into the winter air can grab one. Knitting for Noggins, folks making hats, has warmed the heads of tens of thousands of children over the years. Since July 1, 2006, the Knitting for Noggins program has collected nearly 300,000 hats made by knitters and crocheters from all over the world.
HERE’S ‘STREET CRED’
And here is a little girl, maybe 3, brown curly hair, happily walking away from her parents. Oops — this little girl is attached to a breathing tube clipped to an oxygen tank. She’s pulling away, the tank is about to tump over when Daddy grabs the handle. Off they go, girl and Daddy and oxygen tank, enthusiasm for life augmented by medical science.
Marcy Doderer knows of these things through her daughter Katie, who has a condition called congenital central hypoventilation syndrome.
Katie’s mom explains it this way:
CCHS is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system, so things like breathing, heart rate and temperature control are not well controlled automatically. For example, Katie’s brain doesn’t always recognize changes in oxygen levels or carbon dioxide levels and so she doesn’t always breathe effectively. And so she is dependent on a ventilator except for eight hours a day. She also has systemic lupus, an autoimmune disease.
Doderer said Katie is bright and strong — “determined to go to college.”
“I’d argue that makes it personal” for Marcy Doderer, Steele said of Katie. “It’s street cred. She knows what it’s like to access health care” and to have “the ingenuity to provide care at home. It gives her a very special focus on the patient.”
Lee Anne Eddy, senior vice president and chief nursing officer, has a similar view.
“She’s personally changing our culture as CEO, and people know she’s the mother of a child with special needs.”
Eddy describes Doderer as a sharp listener. “A lot of times, when you get to be CEO, you talk and others listen.” Doderer, she says, does the reverse.
And she’s fearless enough to kiss a pig. That was the weekend of the Arkansas football game against Georgia at War Memorial Stadium. The university mascot, a beastly critter named Tusk, was with the cheerleaders at the hospital and Doderer met him in a personal way.
How does a human kiss a pig?
“Marcy put a piece of apple in her mouth and went right up to the cage,” Eddy said. “It was disgusting.”
On Halloween, Doderer dressed up as a bumblebee.
“It wasn’t the most executive look I’ve carried off, the bumblebee,” Doderer said, before adding, “actually, it was the queen bee.”
Bees are almost as busy as Marcy Doderer.
“She’s here 12 hours a day,” Eddy said. “She has an incredible work ethic.”
“Marcy is taking ACH and making us Arkansas Children’s Hospital,” Eddy said. “We’ve been focused on central Arkansas, and even been known as Little Rock Children’s Hospital. That will be Marcy’s powerful reach.”