richard bock

Board of Directors (as well as Executive Committee and Finance Committees) for Mission Health System, a $1.7 billion, six-hospital system in Western N.C. Mission is the only health system in history to be named a national top-15 system five times in six years by Truven Health Analytics.

Helped guide this high-quality, critical-access hospital through its affiliation and integration with Mission Health System.

Immersion Advisors is a consultancy which puts key leaders into scrubs for a day they will never forget, embedding them deeply into hospital operations. The result: powerful new insights into management’s challenges, the Board’s mission, and the community’s needs. It’s not a hospital tour. It’s not executive rounds. Immersion is transformational. Richard's return to full-time vascular surgery and leadership roles at Novant/Presbyterian will preclude most active consulting. He remains available for selected national speaking engagements. www.immersionadvisors.com

I came from UCLA in 1995 to found the Mission Health vascular surgery program, and over time grew the group to five surgeons and five PA/NP's. In 1998, we performed the first Ancure procedure in the nation, and in 1999 I directed the nation's top-rated teaching program for endo AAA repair with the Ancure device. In 2000, we built the Mission Health Vascular Center, with two suites, a vascular PACU, and a vascular ICU -- the first center in the nation equipped and purpose-built to provide seamless endovascular and open vascular surgical procedures. In 2005, with my radiology colleagues at ARA, I founded Vein Specialists of Carolina Vascular, a practice-within-a-practice which offered full venous care from spider veins through microphlebectomy, laser, RFA ablations and iliac stenting with IVUS. In November 2015—after more than 20 years with the practice I founded and love—I left Carolina Vascular to pursue new opportunities in consulting for health system Boards, Board education, and public speaking.

Program Chief: Prof. Robert Lusby

Venafair, LLC was an early-stage pharm/device startup which focused on the treatment of spider and small varicose veins. As founder, Dr. Bock performed bench research, filed patents, and attracted investors. He developed an updated animal model for small-vein and spider vein research, performed trials on 60 animals at Cannon Research Laboratory, Charlotte, and won a $30,000 grant from the NC Biotechnology Center. Venafair achieved its goal of complete, immediate, durable, single-treatment obliteration of target spider veins in a rabbit model.

Ongoing member of the Mission Health System Finance Committee after rolling off Mission's Board in 2016.