Bill Lawrence has a passion for health care and a passion community.

Paired together, the two tendencies earned him the title of newly appointed Central Michigan Community Hospital chief executive officer, said George Dunn, chairman of the CMCH Board of Directors.

Lawrence officially began the position on Oct. 15, and has had a month to familiarize himself with the position and set goals for the future.

“The hospital is very blessed to have gotten Bill,” Dunn said. “He is very, very personable, straight ahead and positive. He absolutely believes that CMCH can be what it ought to be.”

Make eye-contact with this man

Lawrence said he learned early-on the importance of people skills in everyday interaction as a health care practitioner.

When he was a college student working at Marymount Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, Lawrence met Chuck Mazza, the man whose approach to health care he now hopes to model.

“The thing about Chuck is that he was not only so excited about his job and so excited to pass on knowledge and experience that he had accumulated over the years, but he was excited about working with people,” Lawrence said.

Mazza taught Lawrence to make eye contact with others in the hallway and to greet those in passing with a genuine smile.

These same skills, exemplified by many on the CMCH staff, are what made him feel at home on his first visit to the hospital.

“It was the same thing that I was taught by Chuck so many years ago,” Lawrence said. “Those people I met the first day, the ones that smiled and said hello and so forth, that’s the way that things work here. It is a very, very friendly environment.”

Family ties

Lawrence’s family ties to Mount Pleasant also solidified his choice to relocate. His uncle Joe, whom he looked up to growing up, lived in Mount Pleasant for many years and was a sociology professor at Central Michigan University.

Lawrence said he has memories of visiting his uncle’s house and playing basketball around campus as a child.

When the job offer for CMCH came across his desk at University Hospitals Richmond Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, he was immediately interested.

Lawrence said he plans to be in the Mount Pleasant area for the long haul, and is excited to see changes at both the hospital and the university.

Lisa Hadden, vice chairwoman of the CMCH board, acknowledged Lawrence’s past experience in working with university hospitals and said CMU’s proposed medical school is an opportunity for CMCH to work more closely with the university.

“(Lawrence) has all that experience that he can bring to the partnership between CMU and CMCH,” she said. “I think the hospital would be very excited to play a role in working with the school.”

Medical school will help solve doctor shortage

After practicing health care in Ohio, and now in Michigan, Lawrence said he sees incredible opportunity in the industry.

“I think there is going to be tremendous opportunity in health care in just about every area,” he said. “There is such a large portion of our population that are getting to the age where they are going to use more of our services.”

Lawrence said the demand will produce an increased need for physician assistants and other trained professionals. CMU’s proposed medical school is right on target to help solve the problem, he said.

“From my perspective, it’s all about mentorship and being able to meet that one person or that group of people who you really have something in common with, who inspire you to want to know more about the field to become educated and experienced on a particular aspect,” he said.

CMCH cannot be all things to everyone, he said, but it can have a strong partnership on some level.

Lawrence said he is determined to find out just what that level is, both for the benefit of CMU, as well for the hospital.

“It’s very difficult to recruit physicians in many specialty areas, even in large cities like Cleveland,” he said. “It can be very, very difficult.”

The medical school has the potential to have a positive effect on the situation, Lawrence said.

“In terms of coming to Mount Pleasant, (my timing) is impeccable. I haven’t always said that in my career, but I really do believe that at this point in time,” he said. “This is a very exciting time to be in health care in Mount Pleasant. A very, very exciting time.”

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E-mail the author: Heidi Fenton