Daphne David
President and Chief Executive Officer
Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford
Daphne David, who took on the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford upon Gordon Ferguson’s retirement after 26 years in the position, knows she has big shoes to fill. She embraces all that he and the staff have accomplished over the years, however, like Sir Isaac Newton, she sees the future of the hospital as “building on the shoulders of giants” while incorporating new techniques and technologies to further enhance quality healthcare for the community.
Originally from Biloxi, Mississippi, her father was a minister for 60 years. She grew up in an environment where he was receiving phone calls day and night. Her father was constantly involved and engaged in helping people in different ways. Growing up in this environment, she was not sure how she wanted to serve upon completion of her secondary education, but she knew serving others was her calling.
Taking a few years between high school and college to find her way, at 21 David started a new job as an executive assistant at the local hospital in Gulfport, Mississippi, and she started college two weeks later.
“I went to night school, and worked for four years in that position,” explained David. “I got an undergraduate degree and decided to go back and get my master’s degree. I was blessed to be in an environment that allowed me some flexibility and also challenged me.”
Her boss, the CEO of the hospital at the time, was a visionary. He challenged her way of thinking, as he saw the big picture. She had not seen or experienced anything like that previously. And he was really good to her, encouraging her to keep going on with her education. She had planned to go into Christian Counseling. She was going to hang a shingle next door to her father’s church. That was going to be her and her father’s plan.
And then the beautiful woman who helped raise her, Gerri, became deathly ill and this experience led David to change her path.
“She was the type of person who – you couldn’t do it now, but this was pre-COVID – would ask to hold a random baby in a restaurant and strangers let her as she had such a warm spirit,” David shared. “She was an amazing human.”
David was about three-fourths of the way through a Master’s Degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology when her mom’s hip replacement from several years prior started causing her to have constant pain on her right side. She could no longer teach her Sunday school classes; she was over the children’s programs at David’s father’s church. The pain changed her quality of life.
One of the doctors at the hospital where David worked said he was 90% sure he could fix the problem. So, this lovely lady had a hip revision. She did great. Three months later she was an outpatient in physical therapy, she was moving around, she had a different viewpoint on life, getting back to herself. Then, one morning, she woke up with a fever and she was in tremendous pain all the way down her right side.
“We took her to the emergency department,” said David. “This was about the time hospitals were coming up with protocols about sepsis. They said maybe she pulled something or maybe she had a virus. Come back if anything changes. Three days later we brought her back in an ambulance in septic shock. We were up and down for five months.”
Their world stopped. From that point on she was intubated, then extubated. She was discharged at one point. Then she had to go back into the hospital. She ended up having to be life flighted to a hospital in Louisiana because she got endocarditis and had to have a heart valve replaced due to the sepsis. After that she really struggled to recover. She went back to Mississippi into a long-term acute care facility.
Then, one day, she sat up, looking at David and her father with her bright blue eyes. “So, what’s going on? How are you guys?” She chatted with David and her father, then said she was a little tired and needed to rest. She passed three days later.
“It has been 13 years at this point, but after that our whole world changed,” said David. “As a result of that hospital experience, it changed everything. Our challenge was to look at how we could provide care to communities everywhere.”
Her father became the volunteer chaplain at the hospital where she was working. He did that full time. He showed up every Monday through Friday. He encouraged people, he offered prayer, he helped in whatever way he could. He wanted to be a support for people going through what they went through, and the staff who deal with a lot.
“That was my dad’s heartbeat,” added David. “I am not cut out for direct patient care, I really admire individuals that go in that direction, but I want to be a resource and remove barriers. And what does that look like for me? It moved me down a path. That is why I am in healthcare. That event caused me to switch gears. I stayed at the same facility for 16 years. I started as an executive assistant to the CEO and left as the Chief Operating Officer because of this life change. With multiple steps in between, and lots of mentors.”
David went on to work at a larger hospital in Florida, and then to a hospital in Colorado under the management of a woman she had heard speak at a leadership retreat.
“Syliva Young was the president of the hospital market in Colorado,” noted David, “and she walked up on stage, a petite blonde. Dressed to the nines with gold tipped heels. I remember it like it was yesterday. She got up there and rocked it. She came across with confidence and compassion. I thought, this is a female leader in healthcare that I want to know. That I want to emulate. I thought, if I ever have the opportunity to work for her, I’d love to do that.”
Six months later a position came open in Sylvia’s market, and David got her first CEO position under her direction in North Denver, Colorado.
“It was a phenomenal experience,” said David. “She was challenging and what you saw was what you got. She was completely honest and open and forthright and encouraging at the same time. She made you feel inspired to be better. It was a great experience, but it was not home. I am a Southerner.”
She was drawn to Tennessee, working for HCA in Hermitage, and then she had a friend put her CV into the running for the position of President and CEO of Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford. On the same day her friend sent in her CV, David met Fahad Tahir, President and CEO of Ascension Saint Thomas operations in Middle Tennessee, for the first time at an event.
“I thought that was very serendipitous,” David mused. “Then I interviewed in Murfreesboro for several months. Obviously, Gordon’s legacy in the community is strong so they wanted to make sure that they were making the right decision for the facility, the community and the physicians. I took this position May 1, 2025. I am truly thankful for the warm welcome and I am excited to find a home. Moving across the country is challenging with two kids, ages 11 and 15. I have moved them a lot. I think it makes them resilient in some ways, but I think they deserve a stop and the chance to put down roots. This is a similar community to the one I grew up in but also offers so much more because it is growing.”
“This facility offers what many others don’t, including community engagement, loyalty and growth, becoming more of a regional facility,” explained David. “We are doing more for the community. We are reaching out to rural hospitals and offering support to them. We work a lot with the non-profit community. We will never say we are perfect, but we are always looking for ways to improve the quality of life for the community and for our patients and serve the Ascension mission to support those who are most vulnerable. That is what we try to do every day.”