SCMC Management Team

Bruce C. Christian, President & CEO

Bruce Christian, South Coast Medical Center’s President and CEO, was uniquely chosen by Adventist Health in September of 2005 to lead the hospital through one of the most pivotal moments in its 52-year history. As a member of the Governing Board of the hospital and with extensive experience, Bruce was well qualified to accomplish the goals of Adventist Health to assist with the sale of South Coast Medical Center.

After hearing the community’s concern about the hospital potentially leaving, Bruce convinced the owners and Board of Directors not to sell the hospital.

An Insider’s Knowledge

When it comes to hospital leadership, “I’ve been everything from the janitor to the CEO, literally,” Christian has said.

Indeed, during his high school years, Christian scrubbed floors at Kettering Medical Center in Kettering, Ohio, an Adventist hospital. As a young adult, he served in two other Adventist facilities. He was business manager at Battle Creek Sanitarium & Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan, and then took the same position at the 400-bed Hialeah Hospital in Hialeah, Florida, where he worked for eight years.

Christian then joined Adventist Health Systems/Sunbelt, where he took a position as assistant administrator at Tennessee Christian Medical Center in Nashville. He was there for 2-1/2 years before moving to California. For the next five years, Christian was administrator of Glendale Adventist Medical Center’s Chevy Chase facility.

In 1982, while still working at Glendale Adventist, Christian started his own business. Later, he left Glendale Adventist to devote his full attention to his business, which he still owns and operates from an office in Corona, California. Over the past 20-plus years, his business has contracted with more than 150 hospitals all over the country.

A Long-Term Relationship with SCMC

For the past 14 years, Christian has had a working relationship with SCMC, starting with a consulting contract through his enterprise. When SCMC became part of Adventist Health in February 1998, Bob Carmen, President of Adventist Health, asked Christian to join the hospital’s board of directors.

“While serving on the Board of Directors, I became very familiar with the hospital and its operations,” Christian said. My long relationship with SCMC has also afforded an opportunity to get to know local physicians and community leaders.

In the past, he has also owned a condominium in Laguna Beach, giving him a deeper connection with and understanding of the culture of the community. Bruce and his wife, Julie, are now permanent residents of the South Coast.