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When the arsenic poisonings at a church in New Sweden made national news four years ago, Kris Doody and her staff at Cary Medical Center in Caribou suddenly found themselves in the glare of television lights.
“We had trucks from NBC, CBS, CNN, out in the yard,” she recalls. “Anderson Cooper was here. They all converged on our little hospital, tucked away in rural Maine. We gave them daily updates, but at the same time, we had to make continual decisions about our patients’ privacy.”
The hospital—not so little for a city of 9,000: 65 beds for acute care, 40 for long-term care, plus a 30-bed residential care center jointly administered with the Maine Veterans Association—performed superbly in the spotlight. “They were very impressed that we diagnosed it so quickly,” Doody says.
Doody, who sometimes rides her 2003 anniversary edition Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail to medical conferences and legislative hearings, likes to say that she got an early start on her career. She was born 44 years ago at the hospital she has run for the past 10, first as interim CEO from 1997, and as CEO from 1999 to the present. She is the youngest of eight children. “My mom and dad are still living in Caribou in the house where I grew up,” she says. “It’s a small house. We had five girls and three boys and one bathroom. It was wonderful.”
Doody earned her associate of science degree in nursing from the University of Maine at Presque Isle in 1983, and began working at Cary Medical Center while continuing her education. She earned her RNFA certification from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987, her BS from Regents College of the State University of New York in ’94, and a master of science in business from Husson College in 1997. “I’ve never stopped going to school,” she says.
That includes education on the job, as well. A former operating room nurse and OR supervisor, she still occasionally scrubs in. “I absolutely loved working in the operating room,” she says. “It’s always different; there’s always a uniqueness to the patient and the situation. You have to be able to think ahead and anticipate the surgeon’s needs.”
As CEO, Doody has seen the hospital’s gross revenues double, from $45 million to $90 million, during her tenure. She helped bring the first fixed-based MRI and electronic medical record-keeping system to Aroostook County. She participates in a number of leadership roles, including serving on the Maine Hospital Association’s board of directors. And she dealt with the New Sweden crisis.
While insuring the careful monitoring of the seven poisoning victims who remained at Cary was all part of a day’s work, the role of media-patient go-between was new to Doody. “At how many hospitals do CEOs meet with a group of patients, asking them which national media outlet do you want to tell your story?” she wonders. (The patients chose NBC’s Dateline.)
Although being in the media spotlight is not very common, thankfully, Cary Medical has been there to handle community medical needs since 1924, when it was established with money left to the city by Dr. Jefferson Cary. Its first CEO, Doody notes, was a nurse named “Miss Ames.”
Today, female CEOs like Doody are still a relative rarity. Among Maine’s handful of women who are in charge in hospitals, virtually all, like Doody, are RNs. “I always knew I was going into health care,” Doody says. “I guess it’s what I was born to do.”
“We had trucks from NBC, CBS, CNN, out in the yard,” she recalls. “Anderson Cooper was here. They all converged on our little hospital, tucked away in rural Maine. We gave them daily updates, but at the same time, we had to make continual decisions about our patients’ privacy.”
The hospital—not so little for a city of 9,000: 65 beds for acute care, 40 for long-term care, plus a 30-bed residential care center jointly administered with the Maine Veterans Association—performed superbly in the spotlight. “They were very impressed that we diagnosed it so quickly,” Doody says.
Doody, who sometimes rides her 2003 anniversary edition Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail to medical conferences and legislative hearings, likes to say that she got an early start on her career. She was born 44 years ago at the hospital she has run for the past 10, first as interim CEO from 1997, and as CEO from 1999 to the present. She is the youngest of eight children. “My mom and dad are still living in Caribou in the house where I grew up,” she says. “It’s a small house. We had five girls and three boys and one bathroom. It was wonderful.”
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Doody earned her associate of science degree in nursing from the University of Maine at Presque Isle in 1983, and began working at Cary Medical Center while continuing her education. She earned her RNFA certification from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987, her BS from Regents College of the State University of New York in ’94, and a master of science in business from Husson College in 1997. “I’ve never stopped going to school,” she says.
That includes education on the job, as well. A former operating room nurse and OR supervisor, she still occasionally scrubs in. “I absolutely loved working in the operating room,” she says. “It’s always different; there’s always a uniqueness to the patient and the situation. You have to be able to think ahead and anticipate the surgeon’s needs.”
As CEO, Doody has seen the hospital’s gross revenues double, from $45 million to $90 million, during her tenure. She helped bring the first fixed-based MRI and electronic medical record-keeping system to Aroostook County. She participates in a number of leadership roles, including serving on the Maine Hospital Association’s board of directors. And she dealt with the New Sweden crisis.
While insuring the careful monitoring of the seven poisoning victims who remained at Cary was all part of a day’s work, the role of media-patient go-between was new to Doody. “At how many hospitals do CEOs meet with a group of patients, asking them which national media outlet do you want to tell your story?” she wonders. (The patients chose NBC’s Dateline.)
Although being in the media spotlight is not very common, thankfully, Cary Medical has been there to handle community medical needs since 1924, when it was established with money left to the city by Dr. Jefferson Cary. Its first CEO, Doody notes, was a nurse named “Miss Ames.”
Today, female CEOs like Doody are still a relative rarity. Among Maine’s handful of women who are in charge in hospitals, virtually all, like Doody, are RNs. “I always knew I was going into health care,” Doody says. “I guess it’s what I was born to do.”
