Sonderman
Sonderman
Columbus Regional Health Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tom Sonderman has announced plans to retire next year after 35 years at the local hospital system.
Sonderman, 64, who joined CRH in 1989 as an emergency physician when the organization was still called Bartholomew County Hospital and helped lead the hospital system through the 2008 flood, COVID-19 pandemic and the Ebola and H1N1 scares, plans to retire March 31, according to a statement from CRH.
CRH said its current associate chief medical officer, Dr. Lee Kiser, 52, will be Sonderman’s successor and assume the role of chief medical officer upon Sonderman’s retirement.
“It has been a wonderful career practicing emergency medicine and then moving into hospital leadership,” Sonderman told The Republic. “…But now I’ll be turning 65 next year, and my children and grandkids are geographically dispersed in the United States, so it’s time to be able to visit them and spend time with grandkids, reconnect with family.”
“This was a wonderful opportunity for me and my family,” Sonderman added. “…We thrived here. I really felt like we got so lucky to come here 35-plus years ago and have this great run.”
With the announcement, Sonderman becomes the second member of CRH’s leadership to announce his retirement in recent weeks. In July, longtime CRH President and CEO Jim Bickel announced plans to retire next year.
Over the course of his career at CRH, Sonderman was one of the founding members of the Emergency Physicians Inc – Columbus (EPIC) medical group, which has provided uninterrupted emergency physician services to CRH for more than 30 years.
Sonderman also led several initiatives, including launching the PromptMed urgent care center, the adult hospitalist and pediatric hospitalist programs, the creation of Columbus Regional Health Physicians and numerous building and expansion projects, including the implementation of Epic as the unified CRH electronic medical record platform.
Sonderman also helped lead CRH through some of the largest challenges the hospital system has faced.
“I was here for the flood in 2008,” Sonderman said. “That was catastrophic, but I’ve never been so proud to see people pull together and get through that tough event. So, being able to assist with that is a huge part of both a challenge and an accomplishment during my career. And then in recent decades, we’ve had a run of other things, the Ebola scare and the H1N1 scare and then the COVID-19 pandemic.”
When asked what he will miss the most about CRH, he said, “without a doubt, it will be the people, the patients and the staff and physicians that I work with. This is such a wonderful community and such a wonderful organization.”
Kiser, for his part, said he is “excited” to work with the CRH executive team to tackle some of the challenges facing the healthcare industry across the country, including providing “medical care to a sicker population with a shrinking health care force.”
“I do think there are some pretty significant challenges that health care is going to be facing in the coming decade,” Kiser said. “…We are still very much dedicated to our mission of serving the community, but we also realize that we are going to need to rely on community partners to help get us there. …I am excited to work with the executive team to come up with solutions that really will help our community and allow us to continue to serve our community.”
An Ohio native, Kiser attended medical school at Ohio State University and received an MBA from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, according to CRH’s website. Kiser joined the CRH medical staff in 2003 and has served in multiple roles, including section chief of medicine, chief of staff and vice president and associate chief medical officer.
