Blessed, fortunate, privileged: Paul Moore on rural leadership

Paul MooreFor the first 53 years of his life, Paul Moore lived in a small town. Even when his policy work took him to Washington, D.C., his heart stayed with his rural roots, and he made a name for himself as a passionate and outspoken rural health advocate. In his distinguished career spanning five decades, Moore worked as a pharmacist in rural Oklahoma, a hospital administrator, and a senior health policy advisor at the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, where he retired in 2021.

A longtime NRHA member, Moore served as president of the association in 2008 and is now board cochair for NRHA’s National Rural Health Foundation. We recently chatted with him about the importance of rural leadership, how others have helped shape his successful career, and the value of paying it forward.

What have been the biggest drivers of your success as a rural health leader?

At different points I’ve used different expressions to describe how I’ve seen my life – blessed, fortunate, privileged – and the words have changed along with my experiences. That started with the family I was born into and the education I received at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, one of the best pharmacy schools in the nation. Then there are the opportunities that have come even in my small hometown, where the chief of medical staff and two board members came to my front porch and asked if I’d consider running the local hospital.

Every good thing that’s happened in my life has been because of the good will of others. One thing always leads to another. Working as a pharmacist and filling prescriptions in a small town led me to be known as a go-to person and led to other opportunities such as running a hospital. They thought I was going to be the person who could help them close the hospital, but it just happened to hit at the same time as the critical access hospital designation. There’s a success story there – our hospital was one of the first CAHs in the nation. Then the Rural Health Association of Oklahoma introduced me to the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, and I was their show and tell all around the nation.

How did you get involved with NRHA?

My first time to even hear of NRHA was in 2000. I was invited to New Orleans to speak at the Annual Conference because I was one of the only people in the nation using the CAH designation. In 2007 I was treasurer of NRHA, and in 2008 I was president. That eventually led to 11 years with the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. There’s never as clear a view of the trail as when you look back at where you’ve been, and that’s the biggest affirmation that you’ve done what you were supposed to do. That’s one reason I love living and working in rural America. I grew up in rural and I knew rural, and that was where I was supposed to put my plow in the ground and make a difference.

Why is rural leadership so vital?

You can be rural – you can have lived there all your life and have knowledge and understanding of rural, but that doesn’t make you a leader. On the other side, you can be educated and know health care but not understand rural. I’ve spent most of my career with the federal government talking to colleagues who knew health care and policy, but because they didn’t know rural they thought they could take what works in Boston and New York and plug it into Oklahoma. That’s why I was uniquely qualified to be in the room with those folks and say it won’t work.

You can be a leader but if you don’t understand rural, you’re not a rural leader. The two words together are critical. You need an understanding of rural culture – and I mean the good and the bad of it. There are great sides – rural is resource-restricted but relationship-rich, and rural folks are the best folks you’ll ever be around. The bad side is the disparities – both in resources and health outcomes. Rural leadership is so vital because that’s what we need, and there’s not a lot of ways to find both unless you grow your own.

Why have you chosen to support NRHA’s National Rural Health Foundation?

I’ve chosen to support NRHA’s National Rural Health Foundation because of its mission of rural health leadership development – but it even goes beyond that. My entire connection with NRHA has been an education on the PhD level because of the people I’m able to be around. I see the foundation supporting the people who attend the conferences who get to discover there’s a larger world than what they’re experiencing right now. When they go back to work the next Monday morning, they can leverage what they’ve learned and use it in their own situation.

I’ve had people come up to me after speaking at conferences and tell me they were planning to go home and retire because they were burned out, but I inspired them to see what they can do differently. That will bring tears to your eyes as a speaker. That skill has been developed in me through my relationship with NRHA. I know NRHA members already know what it means to care about things and to support and to give – they care about NRHA and support it in their own way. They might not know there’s an opportunity to support the National Rural Health Foundation. A giver is going to give, and all you need to do is introduce them to the opportunity.

My own opportunities to give are why over time my word to describe my life has changed from blessed to fortunate to privileged. I’m able to financially support things that I care about – and the reason I care about them is I look over my shoulder in that rearview mirror and see that this is where I was meant to be. Everything that’s ever happened to me has been a result of the good will of other people, and that wells up a thankfulness within a person. The best way that I’ve found to express and show that thankfulness is paying it forward. The National Rural Health Foundation is an easy way for folks to pay it forward. It’s a great way to make an investment in other people’s lives and the future of rural health.