Dr. Arthur Porter

He healed one of Metro Detroit’s largest employers

s an oncologist specializing in treating prostate cancer, Dr. Arthur Porter has turned despair into hope and health for many patients.

    But in May 1999, he took on a sick patient unlike any other when he was appointed president and chief executive officer of the ailing Detroit Medical Center.

    The long-mismanaged health system — which comprises seven hospitals, two nursing centers and more than 100 outpatient facilities throughout Metro Detroit — was struggling under the blows of major state and federal cutbacks in health care. About 3,500 jobs had been cut. Physicians and nurses were fleeing to other facilities. Morale was at an all-time low.

    Saving this sinking ship looked to many people like Mission Impossible.

    To everyone but Porter.

    “One of my faults, or talents, is that I’m an optimist,” explains Porter, 44, who had previously chaired the radiation oncology department at Wayne State University.

    Porter’s only concern was if he could turn the unwieldy ship around fast enough. The DMC is a huge infrastructure — Detroit’s fourth-largest employer and a major employer throughout Metro Detroit.

    Yet, industry watchers have marveled at his swift accomplishments.

    The DMC lost only $8.7 million last year, compared to $98.7 million in losses in 1999 and $106.7 million in losses in 1998. This year, the group of hospitals is expected to report profits of $44.7 million. Doctors are applying for jobs again. Morale has improved.

    Porter pushed the organization to refocus on its basic mission of patient care and do away with all the business contracts that didn’t meet that goal or were detracting from that primary objective.

    Perhaps anyone could have made these changes, such as privatizing the medical center’s information services, dumping the center’s managed-care program and adjusting the DMC’s relationship with Wayne State University’s medical school.

    It is unlikely, though, that someone could also have reinspired a depressed organization and made it believe it could be great again.

    Lloyd Semple, DMC board chairman, says Porter has rallied the troops of the DMC.

    “This job is much bigger than any one person, and the function of the leader is to assemble, lead and inspire a team, and that’s what he gets great credit for,” he says. “He’s very smart; he has great vision.”

    Porter has a special way of making personal connections that get people to listen.

    He has no I-am-CEO barriers. He is twinkly eyed, hearty-laugh warm. And, in a diverse town such as Detroit, Porter is an Everyman of sorts.

    His mother is Danish; his father, West African. Porter was born in Sierra Leone, and the family moved around, from Massachusetts to Kenya. Porter received his medical degree from Cambridge University in London. He practiced medicine in Canada, and then in Detroit, where years before, his great-great-grandfather, a freed slave from Virginia, traveled before returning to Africa.

    “To some extent, I have been a successful leader because I bridge many communities,” Porter says. “In many ways, I am part of every community.”

    Porter, who still treats patients once a week, has become so popular and successful at the DMC that he has sparked some concern he will leave for bigger challenges. But for now, Porter says he will continue working long hours at the DMC.

    “I really want to see this place be everything it can,” he says. “There’s much more work to do.”

   

— Sarah A. Webster