By Kami L. Rice

College of Arts & Sciences biology graduate, Dr. Christopher S. Weaver, was recently named chief medical officer for Wishard Health Services, one of the largest safety-net health care systems in the United States. Wishard serves as the public hospital for Marion County, Indiana, and provides a wide network of primary care sites and other health services in Indianapolis. In his new administrative role, Weaver is excited to be positioned on the front lines of working toward the health care changes nearly everyone in the United States agrees are necessary, even if they don’t agree on how to improve health care delivery.

Citing the danger zone for patients that occurs—sometimes because of poor coordination between caregivers—when patients transition out of hospitals back to the care of family and primary care physicians, Weaver says, “We have to find a way to truly integrate this care and make sure patients receive what they need when they need it.”

Following his 1993 graduation from the College of Arts & Sciences, Weaver stayed at UK to earn his medical doctorate in 1997. He then moved to Indiana to complete his emergency medicine medical residency at Indiana University. Since completing residency in 2000, Weaver has worked for Wishard in patient care and for the Indiana University School of Medicine as associate professor of emergency medicine. He also spent eight years as the associate program director for the emergency medicine residency and the emergency medicine/pediatrics combined residency.

Additionally, Weaver has served as Wishard’s vice president of clinical and business integration. He says two of the more significant distinctions between that role and his new one are his now-elevated role in overseeing quality of care and the shift from hospital-focused oversight to oversight for Wishard’s entire health system. As chief medical officer, his responsibilities include meeting quality efforts for in-patient and out-patient care, including patient care during transitions from in-patient to out-patient; health information management; clinical documentation management; physician relationships; and clinical care and business integration. While the majority of his time now goes to administrative tasks, a percentage is still committed to seeing patients and training medical students and residents.

He says he arrived at UK as a freshman who wanted to go into medicine and pre-med, but those plans were further shaped during his undergrad years. “[My time in the College of Arts & Sciences] laid the groundwork for everything I did going forward,” he says.

A native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, Weaver says one of the valuable aspects of his UK education was being exposed to such a wide variety of people from a wide range of backgrounds. “It gave me a much wider perspective on dealing with things like outcomes for health care,” he explains. This has been particularly invaluable for Weaver since Wishard is a public hospital that focuses on providing care to people of all backgrounds, regardless of their ability to pay.

Wishard is in the midst of constructing a new hospital and health campus, the Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital and Eskenazi Health campus. The project to construct the new hospital and health campus will transform the landscape of health care in Indianapolis. Weaver says Wishard’s mission is to provide all the care they can; all money that comes is in turned around to provide patient care. “There are lots of challenges to that, but it’s very rewarding to be able to give care to people who wouldn’t be able to have it otherwise,” he says. Weaver acknowledges that the phenomenon of emergency medicine physicians like him moving into administrative leadership is a newer one, partly because emergency medicine as a specialty has only emerged over the past 30-40 years. However, he notes, “It’s very well positioned for that because in no place in medicine to you interact with all the specialties like you do in emergency medicine.” He says you also really get to see how well a health system is working when you are treating patients at 2 a.m. on a Saturday. Additionally, the emergency department has been particularly good preparation for his new Wishard role because emergency departments are by mission and law a health care safety net.

Of his decision to pursue emergency medicine, Weaver says, “I love the variety. I love that you come in every day not knowing what you’ll see, and you see a little of everything and treat patients from kids up to older adults.”

Another aspect of his liberal arts education that Weaver has found helpful in his career are the ethics courses he took. “I can’t overstate how that comes into play every day,” he says, referring to both medical and health system administrative decisions. He says the communication skills he gained at UK have also been important in his role as an administrator, and writing skills have been valuable for medical publishing. In addition, the math courses he took to earn his biology degree gave him a good baseline and foundation for the coursework for the MBA he has subsequently earned from Indiana University.

Weaver may be living in Hoosier country now, but he says he still bleeds blue. “The atmosphere in Lexington, the family experience I had there, and the variety of experiences I had, especially in undergrad: I have very fond memories of how it prepared me for going out into the world.”