Celebrating Dr. Carla Rotering’s Health Care Heroes 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award
Please join me in celebrating Dr. Carla Rotering’s Health Care Heroes 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed by the Phoenix Business Journal. (Watch video here.) Dr. Rotering practices Pulmonary Medicine at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center and White Mountains Regional Medical Center. She has a long history of leadership and education positions including Director of Critical Care, Chair of Medicine and Chief of Staff.
At Thunderbird Leadership, we know Carla as a leader, mentor and coach who is deeply committed to people–to their growth, upliftment, resilience and purpose as they strive toward the best version of themselves in their professional and personal lives.
Her story is compelling and inspirational, but even more so, her way of being is a model of compassion, integrity and genuineness so it is no surprise that she has been recognized for lifetime achievement.
Carla’s story teaches us about opportunity and possibility. Her consulting company is named BoXcar International because she spent her first six years living in a boxcar on the prairie in North Dakota. In her achievement award comments, Carla explained how that experience informed her perspectives. First of all, she explained, she did not see anything unusual about living in a boxcar. It was just the way it was. Secondly, though, on reflection, she viewed the boxcar for a metaphor about repurposing. When the boxcar was no longer needed by the railroad, it served a new purpose for people in need.
That metaphor of repurposing appears to have carried through Carla’s life. She went from clerical roles to medical school in her 30s when she realized this was even a possibility, supporting and nurturing her children at the same time. She engaged full-heartedly in her practice only to discover, after many years of dedicated work, that she was physically and emotionally depleted, a condition experienced by many medical providers.
Carla found another opportunity to repurpose, getting a degree in Spiritual Psychology, training in Crucial Conversations and Emotional Intelligence and two coaching certifications. This study and work helped her regain her inner strength and gave her a new area of focus. While continuing her practice of pulmonary medicine, she founded BoXcar International, providing coaching and facilitation for people in the medical profession to help them take care of themselves so they can continue to care for others.
In the process of her work, she connected with kindred spirits, Amy Steinbinder and Dorothy Sisneros of Thunderbird Leadership. Together, they conceived a Leadership Summit that is unique in design and application, promoting a philosophy of self-care, mindfulness and reflection. Now, in its thirteenth year, the Summit continues to offer participants an opportunity to step back from the never ending demands of doing, to reorient themselves and listen to the deeper meaning of their work and their lives.
Carla’s influence on the Summit is profound. Her poetic language defines the event and her teachings, meditations, poems and presentations create a tone that helps us all hold ourselves and each other more gently, more kindly. Carla’s way of being and seeing emanates from her heart and touches us all.
Lifetime Achievement! Doctor, coach, facilitator, poet, presenter, educator, parent, friend, mentor and guide. All done with humility, compassion, intellect and wisdom.
Congratulations Carla! Once again, join me in celebrating her success and join us all at the thirteenth Leadership Summit on November 15th, 2019 at the Phoenix Art Museum.
Register before October 1 to avoid late registration fees.
For more information click here.