Tom Sonderman, MD, has worn many hats over his 32-year career at Columbus Regional Health, including emergency medicine physician, medical director of the Emergency Department, Chief of Staff, and for the last 18 years, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. In his current role, he oversees a medical staff of approximately 275 physicians across Columbus Regional Health, as well as quality and safety, clinical risk management, credentialing and continuing medical education, and the Office of Care Coordination.

For the last year, Dr. Sonderman has served as co-executive lead of our Incident Command group, which oversees the health system’s COVID-19 response efforts. Incident command is a multidisciplinary group that provides technical leadership for and oversight of all aspects of crisis management, coordinates the overall response, approves action plans, and serves as an authority on all activities and decisions. He is proud of the health system’s multi-faceted response efforts and ongoing work to address the pandemic and continuously provide the best care for our community.

Since joining the organization in 1989, Dr. Sonderman can list many things that make him proud of being part of Columbus Regional Health. Among the list was when he was medical director of the Emergency Department and the members founded a new emergency medicine group – Emergency Physicians Inc of Columbus. This group has provided emergency physician staffing to Columbus Regional Hospital since 1994 and continues to provide physician staffing in the ED today. “I am very proud to be one of the founding members of that medical group and what we accomplished growing and building that group through the years,” said Dr. Sonderman. During his time as medical director, the opening of the new Emergency Department in the early 1990s was also a significant milestone for emergency medicine at CRH.

As Chief of Staff, Dr. Sonderman’s exposure to medical staff leadership helped him see the broad impact a leader could make in program development and quality improvement initiatives. He made the transition to an administrative role in 2003 when he was named Vice President and Chief Medical Officer.

One of Dr. Sonderman’s biggest professional accomplishments was the launch of the Hospitalist program. Hospitalists are hospital-based physicians who care for inpatients. When the program was started, CRH was closed due to the historic 2008 flood. However, physicians were recruited – a sign that those candidates had confidence in the health system. CRH continues to have a strong Hospitalist program today, and Dr. Sonderman considers it one of his proudest professional accomplishments to play a role in developing the program.

Another significant milestone during his career was the formation of Columbus Regional Health Physicians, integrating the physician practices into the overall health system. That transformation provided a more formal structure for physicians to have a seat at the table to make decisions. “Ever since my arrival here, if I thought something was important for our patients or the practice of Emergency Medicine, [the Executive Team and Board] have always wanted to listen, wanted to hear our opinions, and took our opinions to heart. It really made a difference in major decisions that were made,” he said. He points to the health system’s decision to convert to a new electronic medical record across all CRH entities and the significant input that was provided by physicians. “That is an amazing example of the voice that physicians have with this health system and their ability to direct what is most important for patient care,” he said.

That is ultimately what Dr. Sonderman is most proud of about CRH: the health system strives to do what is best for patients. “Giving patients the best medical care possible while providing a great patient experience – that’s the most immediately gratifying,” he said.

When Dr. Sonderman is not at CRH, he enjoys fishing, biking, hiking, and spending time with his family. They live in Columbus, which he believes is a great place to practice medicine. “This is a wonderful medical community. It is of a size that you know all your colleagues. It’s big enough that it gives you all the support you need, but small enough that you’re not just a number. That’s a very important attribute,” he said.