VCU Health Administration’s Executive-in-Residence (EIR) program, which restarted in 2022, gives students and faculty a direct link to health care leaders who can complement their MHA and MSHA education. The EIR program establishes a partnership with a health care leader who has an interest in assisting students in preparation for transition from academia to practice. The leaders mentor students virtually and are on-site at VCU at least once a year. This year, VCU partnered with former hospital CEO Bill Downey and independent health care strategist Carlene Callis.

Downey: Health care is a people business first

In a hospital or other care setting, “everybody is important.”

“If you work in health care, you work with great people who haven't finished high school up to people who have 10 years or more of post-college education,” explains Bill Downey, the former chief executive of Riverside Health System. “The surgeon can do a masterful job, but if the room isn't clean and the patient gets an infection, their work is minimized.”
 
Great health administrators know every team member plays a critical role in patient care and quality. It’s a lesson that Downey, who will retire from Riverside at the end of the year, will instill in MHA and MSHA students as he embarks on his two-year executive-in-residence position at VCU.
 
Upon retirement, Downey will have amassed a nearly 40-year career with Riverside, where he began in 1981 as an administrative extern. He earned his MHA from VCU in 1985 and worked at Riverside for a decade before positions in Salem, Va. and Florida. He returned to Riverside in 2001 and was named president and CEO in 2012. Today, he serves as executive vice chairman of and special adviser to the Riverside Health Board. Riverside has 9,000 employees and operates seven hospitals in Newport News, Williamsburg, Hampton, Gloucester and the Eastern Shore. 
 
For anyone starting in health care, “you’ve got to love change,” he says. “It is a dynamic industry, with pretty seismic events every couple of years.” 
 
One of the biggest challenges ahead is an aging workforce — along with the patients they serve. And there aren’t enough people joining the health care workforce to replace outgoing providers and staff. 
 
“While health care is a people business, we can augment a lot of it with technology,” he says. “That’s the challenge before new leaders: How do you take all of this technology, all of this artificial intelligence and machine learning, and drive that in the best way to give nurses and other staff the ability to offer more of a human touch and those personal connections that are needed in health care, which technology cannot provide?”
 
In his work with VCU, he hopes to bring in outside experts from across his four decades of making connections, to teach concepts that don’t often come from textbooks — like raising capital funding for projects using bonds and equity, or negotiating with insurers.
 
“It’s about being available to the students — even just to answer questions,” he says. “If they have a question coming out of a class, or if they read or see something, I want to be there to explain how it really works in health care versus in the texbook.”
 
Downey and his wife will celebrate 40 years of marriage next year and plan to remain in their WIlliamsburg home when he retires. The couple has three grown children and two grandchildren. He continues to serve on several nonprofit boards in Virginia and on the Peninsula.

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Callis: For career and life success, put family first

It was not too long after graduating from VCU with a master’s degree in health administration that Carlene Callis realized where her passion in health care lay. 

She was afforded an opportunity during her residency and fellowship program to design strategy, oversee construction, integrate operations and operationalize a new outpatient facility in Michigan. 

Once established, she was asked to run it.  Following a few years in managing the facility, she realized how much she missed being at the table to design and build new programs and offerings that create organizational growth.   She realized, “I’m probably better at being a builder than a manager. I thrive on building a solid business case, designing strategies and plans to execute and shepherding actions to optimize results.”

The early career lesson kept her focus on things she enjoys doing, as well as understanding that a career isn’t always linear. “You have to zigzag such that you find your passion and your wheelhouse,” she says.

Over her 30-year career, Callis has served in a variety of roles that allowed her to achieve a unique blend of expertise in optimizing operations and growth. She’s held executive roles within HCA Healthcare and other systems. Today she is an independent consultant, and began her two-year executive-in-residence position with VCU Health Administration in January.

One tenet she preaches: Managing work and life — kind of. “Work-life balance is pretty much not a real thing. You do have to make choices, but in my opinion, you’ll have fewer regrets if you err on the family side versus the professional side,” says Callis. 

She never fully left the health care field, but sidelined herself for the better part of a decade to raise a family of three girls and care for her terminally ill sister. While she mentors all types of students and early careerists, she’s particularly interested in coaching women, current or would-be moms and those who are primary caregivers. 

“I was at the top of my career, but in the end, it didn’t hurt me to step away for a bit of time or make a sacrifice for my personal life,” she says. “I believe it actually helped me be a better leader and manager, and that’s a message that needs to be instilled in early-career women today.”

At VCU, she has supported student case competitions at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB’s competition is the pinnacle of such competitions among health administrators) and The Ohio State University. 

“Being a leader today, especially a female executive, is very different than it was 10 to 20 years ago. I’ve learned the good, bad, the ugly. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve done a lot of right, I’ve learned from all of it,” she says. “I like the idea of striving for ‘perfect effort’ — not being perfect, and allowing a lot of grace for myself and others. When you are authentic and offer grace, you can show up, be present, and lead effectively.”