By John Yeary, CEO of Freestone Medical Center

Over my career, I’ve spent almost 30 years as the Chief Executive Officer and business owner. In March of 2018, I joined Freestone Medical Center (FMC) in Fairfield, Texas as Interim CEO. In August 2024, I will retire from FMC. Reflecting on my career, it’s clear that applying the following lessons helped advance my career and improve hospital performance. 

Lesson 1: Humility. As a new CEO, I thought I was overly confident. I quickly realized how much I had to learn. To this day, I am constantly reminded of the need to rely on others and stay humble. There is no way for hospital CEOs to know everything. It’s also important to partner with your executive team and your board. Use the board as your eyes and ears and recognize the value the board brings. 

Lesson 2: Continuous learning. Every day is a learning opportunity. Being a CEO in a small hospital is a lot like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Every morning you come in with a pile of pieces. The pieces represent patients, physicians, employees, community members, board members, projects, corporate directives, and more. It’s your job to put the puzzle together and deliver quality healthcare. The challenge is that the next morning, the pile of pieces is back, but the edges have changed and the cutout template has changed. Every day it’s a new puzzle. 

Lesson 3: Value-base leadership. The way to build success in a constantly changing environment is to rely on your core values. My top three are integrity, honesty, and stewardship. It’s key to be true to your values and show up consistently and reliably for your team and community. 

Lesson 4: Start small. At the beginning of my tenure at FMC, the community had lost faith in the hospital and there was a lot of work needed to rebuild trust. Every employee here played a role because we worked together to provide a positive experience for every patient, every test and every outcome. When we fell short, we identified the issue and fixed the problem right away. Our improvement started one patient at a time, day in, day out. It really was that simple. The secret has been in treating our community the way we would want our parents, our siblings and our grandparents treated. Fortunately, the staff has embraced that and lives it each day.

It took a while to get some critical mass, but as we gained momentum, the community began to learn that the hospital was under new management with a new attitude. Positive gains helped the community see the hospital as an important asset.

Lesson 5: Find the Right Fit. Although I spent a decade in urban tertiary health systems, working in a rural community hospital has been my sweet spot. After my wife and I had children, I looked for an environment where I could succeed as a dad, husband, and hospital executive. Rural medicine is a good choice for work-life balance. It’s also a great fit for hands-on people who want to be close to the action, know patients and their families, be involved in the schools, join a church, participate in civic organizations. 

Lesson 6: Build relationships. Working with other people is one of the most important skills of a hospital CEO. Even when personalities clash, you can work with them if you learn how they are motivated and what they value. Building relationships helps recruit physicians, strengthen community ties, motivate staff and improve hospital performance. 

Lesson 7: Take advantage of opportunities. Over the last few years, FMC has been able to expand as competitors faltered and gaps in healthcare service were identified. It’s important to keep an eye on your market and follow your out-migration, admissions and other trends, but it’s equally important to take advantage when opportunities arise. Our growth has been successful because of the commitment of the board and staff to do the work needed to find locations and hire the staff to get the new locations up and running. 

Lesson 8: Build expertise. Positions provide learning opportunities that you can build on throughout a career. I didn’t plan to be a hospital turnaround specialist, but necessity helped me learn how to get struggling hospitals back on track. The last five hospitals I led were challenged financially, culturally or from a leadership perspective when I joined. Today, I’m proud to say that four out of five are still operating. I learned through diligence and hard work and applied those lessons to continue improving performance. 

Lesson 9: Stay positive. Those who know me best know I’m a dreamer and eternal optimist. This outlook helps because there are always challenges, but staying positive provides resilience to overcome obstacles. Of course, a healthy dose of reality is also important, but a positive outlook has helped me learn from setbacks and appreciate accomplishments.

Lesson 10: Enjoy the experience. The most important take-away from my career is to enjoy every moment, every day, every encounter, every challenge and every success because it goes by so quickly.  Looking back, I can say that this career has been wonderful for me personally and professionally.

After a remarkable 42-year career in healthcare, John Yeary, CEO of Freestone Medical Center (FMC) in Fairfield, Texas, is retiring this August. His leadership has been instrumental in the growth and success of FMC, particularly during his tenure as CEO which began in 2018. As this month’s guest blog author, he shared insights learned along the way to help other rural and community hospital CEOs.