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I grew up in Oklahoma City and went to the University of Oklahoma for my undergraduate studies, medical school, and ER residency. I am married to my high school sweetheart, Cindy, and we have 3 children. Both of my sons are golf pros and my daughter graduates from Clemson this year with a degree in art. My hobbies include golf and high-end audio equipment. We currently live in South Carolina about 45 minutes from the mountains.
Professional Experience
After finishing my ER residency, I worked at Presbyterian Hospital (OK) as an ER doctor. Presbyterian was part of the OU Health Sciences Center complex where I attended medical school and did my residency. My four years of residency included one year of Internal Medicine internship and three additional years of ER residency. After I finished working at Presbyterian as a staff ER doc for seven years, I moved to Wichita, Kansas. I initially worked at Wesley Hospital, which was an HCA facility.
I then moved to Via Christi hospitals in Wichita, where I ultimately became the ER director of two hospital ER’s that had just merged. It was a challenge initially getting these disparate groups to see eye to eye and work well with one another, but we accomplished that in spades, recruiting at least 12 additional ER residency trained or boarded ER docs to the group and growing the volume from 65,000 a year when I first became director to 110,000 a year when I left.
I was also the VPMA/CMO for Via Christi, which had close to a 900-member medical staff. I started a hospitalist program while there which expanded to our two main campuses as well as our rehab and psychiactric facilities. I also started an intensivist program there, which began as a medical intensivist program but grew to include a surgical and trauma intensivist program, as well as a dedicated neuro intensivist program. I recruited many doctors to Via Christi during that time which included intensivists/pulmonologists, hospitalists, and ER docs. We also saw the growth of our Level 1 trauma program at St. Francis in Wichita, headed up very capably by Dr. Steve Smith, whom I was fortunate to get to work with. One of the things Steve and I accomplished was an improvement in the manner in which the surgical residents and our ER attendings worked together to care for trauma patients. I was also involved in the helicopter and fixed wing services that flew patients to our hospitals.
In 2006, I moved to Spartanburg to become the ER medical director for Spartanburg Regional, a Level 1 trauma facility that sees 105,000 patients per year. I later assumed a VP job at Spartanburg Regional, the VP of Hospital Based Physicians, where I was in charge of the ER group, the hospitalists, the anesthesiologists, the psychiatrists, a plastic surgery practice, and later palliative care. I recruited 16 ER docs, 15 hospitalists, and a psychiatrist to Spartanburg Regional. The hospitalist program grew from six doctors to 21 docs while I was in charge, the supplement per doctor decreased while the doctors’ salaries increased. The facilities' side cost improvements, realized mainly through decreased LOS and earlier-in-the-day discharges, were dramatic. Similarly, we realized cost improvements in the ER cost center by outsourcing the physician billing and then working extremely closely with the billing company, improving the doc’s documentation—which in turn improved their billings—and got more money in the doctors' pockets with less outlay to the cost center from the hospital.
I currently work for Apollo MD, serving as a regional director, directing two of their ERs, and working clinically in three of their ER’s with volumes of 25,000, 40,000, and 60,000.
Family
I live in Spartanburg, South Carolina, 45 minutes from downtown Greenville; 1½ hours from downtown Columbia and downtown Charlotte, NC; and 1 hour from Asheville, NC. When my daughter graduates in May, that will complete putting my third child through college, which I’m excited about. I’ve also been enjoying my first grandchild, Rees Nicklaus Rody, who lives with my son Ryan and his wife Cristina in Dallas. Both Ryan and Cristina are golf pros in the Dallas market, though Cristina is taking a break from her golf pro duties to focus on Rees. My son Tyler is touring on the mini pro golf circuits, trying to work his way to the big tour, though he did play in his first PGA event late last year at the Wyndham Open in Greensboro. He will marry his college sweetheart, Cristy Dillon, this summer. Amber is engaged to Alan Sampson, with their wedding to take place early next year.