CEO, PureCare Living
Type of Business: Post-Acute Healthcare Management and Development Company
Based: Las Vegas, NV
Hails from: Shreveport, Louisiana
Years Co. has been in Nevada: 3
Years with Company in Nevada: 3
Employees with Company: 50
What was your first job?
I delivered TV’s for a local repair shop – Broadmoor TV, 1980. My first job in healthcare was as a brace maker in Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children in Shreveport Louisiana, 1982.
What career advice would you give to your teenage self?
[I would tell myself to] read more and study foreign healthcare systems.
What was the toughest lesson you’ve learned in your career?
You cannot change people; they must want to change themselves. You can guide them and possibly alter their course but to be a healthcare provider it takes a specific personality. The necessary skill-set can be taught but the caregiving personality is something that must be there first.
If you had to live in another country for a year, which would you choose and why?
[I would live in] South Korea because of the technology and innovation in all aspects of healthcare. It’s such a different culture and would be an eye opener. I have always thought I could live anywhere for a year to experience the culture.
What is an issue currently facing your industry an outside observer might not be aware of?
[Others not be aware of] clinician burnout and skills check procedures. Administration converts the work of clinicians into funding for the facility and its employees.
What work project are you excited about in the next few months?
[I’m excited about] the opening of Silver State Pediatric Skilled Nursing Facility. This facility will provide services allowing children ages 0 to 18 to remain in Nevada for therapy.
If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be and what would you have?
Dr. Frankenstein! What was his intention? Who were his nurses, what equipment did he have? We’d have steak, rare of course.
What is your favorite thing about living in Nevada?
The climate verses Louisiana. I have found I love the desert.
