Five Questions: Carrie Richardson

Q: How did you find out about this position?

A: The reason I have this job now is because Alexis Brown (who is on maternity leave after giving birth to a son in February) was a mentor of mine – I did an internship with her when I was in college and I kept in touch with her. When this job came up, she called me and here I am.

Q: What does your job as director of communications entail?

A: I find myself doing a lot of internal communications as well as external communications. There’s planning for meetings for administrators, and working on (marketing for) different services that we have here. For instance, we recently opened a sleep lab, so I’m working on an open house for Sleep Awareness Week, which is (March 5–11). It’s things like that with the different departments, as well as trying to market the hospital overall, telling people what services the hospital has to offer to the community.

Q: How does your work for the hospital differ from your work with DCO?

A: (Doctors Hospital) is not a nonprofit. Nonprofits tend to be more heavily focused on fund-raising, and that’s not something that my job here entails. In my job here, there aren’t the presentations to potential donors. There are events, but they’re more internal events.

Q: Doctors Hospital has opened clinics in Nixa, Webb City, Mount Vernon and Rogersville in recent years. How has the growth affected the organization?

A: Before I was brought on, Alexis was doing a lot of management, so there wasn’t a lot of communications being done because there wasn’t enough time in the day to get it done. So I’ve tried to pick that up. … There has been a restructuring as far as administration goes, so there are now several assistant administrators managing different portions of the hospital. There is, for example, an assistant administrator in charge of all the clinics – there are clinic managers for each location, but the administrator is in charge of all of them.

Q: What do you do personally to stay healthy?

A: I am a firm believer in staying active. I only drink water, I work out four days a week as well as running, doing elliptical work or riding an exercise bike at home. If the weather’s nice, I’ll do something outside. I try to get the most out of my day – it gives me more energy. My health has greatly improved by focusing on overall wellness.