Marcy Doderder is the president and CEO of Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock.
1 a.m.-5 a.m. Intermittent awakenings on any given night due to ventilator and monitor alarms alerting us to potential problems while Katie, my daughter, sleeps. (Katie uses a ventilator because of a complex medical condition that prevents her brain from recognizing signals to breathe.)
5:45 a.m. My alarm goes off. I shower and have breakfast with Mark and sometimes Katie. I try to be healthy and have a fruit smoothie or oatmeal and blueberries. Unless I am craving leftover pizza with a fried egg on top —– we have an outdoor pizza oven and love to make pizzas, but I try to limit myself to one pizza breakfast a week!
7-7:30 a.m. Arrive at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, check email and calendar, regular mail, sign documents and get ready for the day.
8:30 a.m. Daily Safety Huddle for 15 minutes with leadership team. We look back at yesterday and make plans for today to keep patients, families and staff safe.
8:45-noon My morning is spent mostly in meetings: one-on-ones with other leaders; doing rounds through various hospital departments; prepping for board meetings.
12-1 p.m. If I don’t have a meeting, lunch is at my desk. I have a quick soup or sandwich or leftovers while I check my emails again, scan journals, etc.
1-5 p.m. More meetings — the life of a healthcare executive — small group or one-on-one meetings with physicians and UAMS colleagues, building strategy and financial plans, evaluating quality and safety efforts, or working with donors and other outside parties who have an interest in ACH.
5-6 p.m. This is my quiet time when I try not to allow meetings to creep into the schedule so that I actually have some thinking time — time to reflect on how we can do better by the kids of Arkansas — as well as casual interactions with members of my team. While running a hospital is like running any other company and the dollars and cents matter, as a children’s hospital the patients and their families have to come first. It’s important to have unscheduled time that fosters more creative conversations. I’ll check email one more time before leaving.
6 p.m. I love to meet my husband at the ACH Fitness Center, or if it’s good weather go for a run outside.
8 p.m. Dinner with family. We try to be healthy with recent menus of salmon with a mushroom and kale sauté and quinoa salad with crabmeat and vegetables. But there’s almost always wine with dinner — and pizza once a week!
9 p.m. This is my personal time where I catch up on social media, personal email and texting with my other daughter who is in college and my sister who lives in Jakarta. Occasionally we watch TV, but I can’t remember the last time we watched a show with any regularity.
10 p.m. I like to read before bed. I love spy novels — they are my favorite escape. Currently I’m reading Gray Mountain by John Grisham. I’m also reading The River That Flows Uphill: A Journey from the Big Bang to the Big Brain by William H. Calvin. I usually have two books going. It’s lights out not long after 10 — I am not a night owl!
Plan B: I had always planned to go into international banking and live in Europe. I was an exchange student in Germany and spent a summer semester in Austria. But all that changed when I met my husband! After doing an internship at ACH, I was intrigued by the complexity of the management of the hospital and how that balanced with doing the best for people. It’s fascinating.