By Lou Hernández
Michael Bell, named president of Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale last September, began his health care career in an unlikely manner. Born in Central Valley, California, Bell’s first job in health care was as a hospital chaplain. Obtaining his Master’s in Divinity degree and ordained in the Lutheran Church, Bell began his ministry work at a Bakersfield hospital in his late 20s.
“It was a unique experience to have without having the life experience,” recalled Bell. “I visited patients every day. I also supporting the staff, such as when a patient died, I would be called to bring comfort and understanding to this very difficult process. What I learned from that experience was that people were not looking at me to provide comfort, they were looking at me to provide things that brought them comfort. It’s really about helping the family find their source of strength and not you having to be the source of strength.”
Over the course of Bell’s career, medical science’s advancements have, more and more, converted previously expected tragic outcomes into triumphs. “You get the privilege of being with people during their loss,” explained Bell, 53, “but you also get the great privilege of being there in the moments when the miracles of what we do in health care change people lives. I’ll never forget the first time back in the 2000s when heart stents were introduced. Before stents, heart attacks in older men would cause a great amount of damage or were fatal. The first time I saw a cardiologist fix the blood clot on a type of vessel that I knew, in the past, was something that would place me with the family grieving the loss of their provider, their father – and then to see him walk out the next morning is exceptional.”
Bell’s commitment to service was clear from his teenage years. Following high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served his country as reconnaissance analyst in the Caribbean and then in the Gulf War, before pursuing his chaplaincy.
The transition from hospital chaplain to hospital administrator occurred when the CEO of his California hospital one day asked Michael, who was also working in the hospital’s Information Technology Department, if he had ever thought about a health career as an administrator. “He gave me some books on how to improve health care quality and safety,” remembered Michael. “That resonated with me. It was about process. Randy Rolfe, the CEO, eventually hired me as Director of Quality. I realized I had the opportunity to improve the system of care of patients. Taking data, understanding processes and trends, using the data to create action plans, and engaging with doctors and nurses to understand the data and apply the data. I’m not a nurse or a doctor, but I work with nurses and doctors to help them look at the resources they have available on how they can improve their practices using data and their own resources to impact the lives of others.”
Before taking the helm at Florida Medical Center, Bell and his wife Doris relocated to South Florida in 2018 to become president of Hialeah Hospital, having worked for the hospital’s previous owners, Tenet Healthcare Corporation. (FMC and HH were two of five hospitals acquired by Steward Health Care from Tenet in 2021.) The cross-country move was facilitated by the couple’s “empty nester” status, following the independent transitions of their eldest daughter Christina Maria and son Peter. “I love it here,” stated Bell. “As in all my previous settings, I’m getting to know the community in Broward. Here there is wonderful diversity with the Haitian and Jamaican communities, living right around this very hospital.”
Bell’s focus is on engagement. “I know how to build relationships and how to listen to the community,” the medical center president informed. “It’s about empathy, it’s about caring about the community I’m serving. What the community cares about, I care about. You have to be visible. You can’t take care of people without them knowing you, and you can’t meet their needs without being in a relationship.”
For Bell, the reward is clearly entwined with his job. “It’s a gift, this role that we have.”
