Dr. Forney Fleming, Jindal School clinical professor and director of the MS in Healthcare Management program, has been honored with a service award by the American College of Healthcare Executives.
The award came from the national organization and was presented to Fleming Nov. 5 at the annual North Texas ACHE chapter dinner.
“ACHE is the definitive organization for top level healthcare executives, and I’m honored to be a recipient of this award,” says Fleming, who has served on the board of the local chapter for eight years and is on the editorial review board of ACHE’s national Journal of Healthcare Management.
In 2014 and 2015, he and a professor from UT Arlington served on the committee that set up the case study for the North Texas chapter’s annual graduate student competition,. “This involves choosing the case competition, recruiting judges and picking healthcare executives to serve as advisors for each of the teams in the competition,” Fleming says.
“It’s gratifying to see these student teams organize and compete and hear their suggestions of how they would solve problems of trouble in health care,” he says. “The writing and verbal skills necessary to be successful in this competition will serve them well in their careers. They are the future of healthcare management, and they know how to think outside the box.”
The past few years, because of his planning duties, Fleming has had to recuse himself from serving as coach or advisor to the Jindal School’s ACHE case study competition teams. Still, they have done well: A JSOM team won the Nov. 5 competition, and JSOM teams have won the contest four of the last five years.
Fleming’s efforts to assemble the case study competitions aside, his biggest ACHE contributions lately have been his service as a member of the local ACHE board. Additionally, he participates in the local chapter’s mentoring program. “This involves advising students and those already in a career,” he says. “It’s extremely rewarding to have that one-on-one relationship with them and to help these young people trying to improve their future. I try to explain to them early measures they will need to be successful in a long-term career and answer any questions they have.”
Fleming’s own healthcare career started as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force. Then he spent three decades as an orthopedic surgeon before arriving at the Jindal School to start the MS in Healthcare Management program in 2008.
Fleming earned his MD from The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston; an MBA from the University of Houston Clear Lake and a BA from The University of Texas at Austin.
He looks at his recent accolade as a signal that he has been on the right track in his work with ACHE and looks forward to continuing to serve the organization. “From networking opportunities to giving you insight into the job market, it’s an incredibly dynamic organization and is a huge asset for anyone who wants to reach the upper level ranks of healthcare,” he says. “My goal is to continue to promote programs from the local chapter that are beneficial to our students and assist early healthcare careerists advance up the managerial ladder.”
