Darin Roark, the newly minted president and COO at Wentworth Douglas Hospital (WDH) in Dover, was working in health care even before he graduated from high school. But it was following what he describes as a “horrible illness” in his twenties that he knew he was meant to be part of the health care sector.
In high school, Roark was introduced to the health insurance industry through a co-op program and went to work for a health insurance company after graduation. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in marketing while taking college courses in the evenings and later earned an MBA from Northern Illinois University. After eight years with the health insurance company, Roark says, “I felt like I just wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do with my life.”
Following an illness that landed him in the hospital for a long time, Roark says he realized he wanted to join a hospital to help others. After graduating from nursing school, Roark worked at the bedside of patients in trauma intensive care units and as an emergency department tech. Roark’s first leadership role as a nurse manager came about two-and-a-half years after becoming a nurse. Being a manager was “never something that I really saw myself doing,” he says. “I loved being a nurse, and I loved taking care of those patients.”
With encouragement from a nursing leader at the hospital, Roark saw how he could make a difference on a wider scope. “As a leader in health care and as a nursing leader you can impact an entire community,” he says. “I never dreamed that I would have the opportunity to do the job I do now.”
Prior to arriving in NH in July with his wife Natasha and their three children, Roark served in a dual role as hospital president of Baptist Medical Center Clay and as system vice president of ambulatory campuses and emergency services for Baptist Health, a nonprofit health system in Florida.
“I'm elated and excited to be here,” Roark says. In 2021 WDH, an affiliate of Mass General Brigham, expanded its primary and secondary service areas surrounding Dover. The current service area serves an estimated population of 215,000 in Maine and NH.
Roark says among his goals at WDH are to work on filling critical positions that will be needed to meet the challenge of an aging population.
“We have workforce shortages in just about every specialty that exists in health care from imaging to those folks working in our cardiac catheterization labs to our nursing staff,” Roark says. “Whatever we can do to get the word out to encourage folks to choose a career in health care, we're certainly going to do that.”
Building a health care workforce pipeline involves being immersed in the community, Roark says. He has already been attending chamber of commerce meetings and getting to know other community and academic leaders, he says.
“We had a meeting in early November at WDH with guidance counselors from local high schools to talk to them about the different careers that are available,” he says.
Current Issue - April 2024