Matt Cogdill ’07 and “The Weight of the Mission”

When Matt Cogdill ’07 received the job as Lexington Medical Center’s VP of Physician Network, he knew it was a special opportunity. “This was my hometown and I’m serving the people that I care the most about.”

Matt’s role at Lexington Medical Center is to create an environment where “our physicians, our nurses, our nonclinical staff are in the best position to do their job. Whether that’s from a supply, people, or protocol standpoint, I try to get resources to the frontline staff.”

Over the last few years, he’s witnessed the element of community trust. He notes, “When you’re building trust over those years, you’re banking that trust for a future event that you [may] have to go through.”

Pandemic Challenges

Enter: the pandemic.

When asked about COVID-19’s impact on day to day operations at Lexington Medical Center, Matt is quick to share, “I would be really mistaken if I did not give 100% of the credit to the clinicians. They’ve done a fantastic job.”

Early on in the pandemic, Matt reflects, “It’s walking alongside clinicians, especially our physicians, and saying “What do you need? Sometimes that meant getting on a conference call with China and trying to access masks. Other times it meant making sure food was delivered to the hospital staff working around the clock.”

Matt continues, “It really was getting up every day and doing the work. It’s completely re-writing policies, it’s communicating [precautions] with a community that has 700,000 people in it. All that’s on the fly.”

Bright Spots

Matt likens this challenging time to a theme from one of his favorite movies: Band of Brothers and the soldiers’ “weight of the mission.”

He compares this idea to how Lexington Medical Center received some of their highest patient satisfaction scores to date, sharing, “When you can identify to the weight of the mission on a daily basis, I think it really pushes a huge piece of empathy that patients can relate to.”

While We Live, We Serve

In reflecting on his time as a Business Administration major at Presbyterian College, “There is an appreciation for hard work and accountability that really translates well. Not only through your schoolwork and honor system, but also from a humanistic side.”

Since his time at PC, the “While We Live, We Serve” motto has meant even more to him over the years. “I think a big piece of who I am is driven out of that.”

As he walks down the halls of Lexington Medical Center, Matt makes a point to ask himself daily, “How am I serving people? Am I doing that well? Am I loving on people?”

He believes that for the hospital as a whole, “While We Live, We Serve [is] woven into everything we do. There’s some real weight to the mission with that [motto], and in what I get to do every day.”