Shayne George has only used his hospital once.

It was a memorable time, and not because of the pain in his back.

He was laying on his back in 2004 when he got the call that he'd been promoted to chief executive of Doctors Hospital.

Doors there lead to hallways that lead to more doors opening to more hallways. Meandering from the administration office to the Joseph M. Still Burn Center, Mr. George describes the hospital as a little city. And he feels like the mayor.

At age 41, he's a young mayor for a hospital the size of Doctors Hospital: 1,300 employees and 350 beds.

Ken Wicker, the hospital's chief operating officer -- Mr. George's pre-promotion position there -- said Doctors is one of the best in the eastern group of Hospital Corp. of America, the hospital's Nashville, Tenn.-based ownership company.

"For them to move Shayne up there says something about his talent," said Don Snell, the chief executive of MCG Health Inc. He understands what it is like to be a young chief executive officer -- he did it at 37.

"People get to CEO of a 50-bed or a 100-bed hospital early on, but Doctors is not a small hospital," Mr. Snell said. Factor in the competitive nature of a 160-hospital corporation, and Mr. George's rise becomes more remarkable.

Mr. George said he had good advisors over the course of his career with HCA.

"I was lucky to have some good mentors who allowed me to get that front-row seat and see a hospital as it operates, like a little city," he said. "What you'll do with a quarter is what you'll do with $1 million. Customer service with a smile is timeless."

The city is getting bigger. Doctors, in west Augusta, is undergoing its largest expansion since it was established in 1973.

A nearly $70 million renovation is taking shape -- three stories of steel and concrete have sprouted in front of the hospital. It will take more than a year to finish. It will hold a 24-bed intensive care area and offer a larger lobby.

It was a project envisioned before Mr. George arrived in Augusta, but there are more visions dancing in his head.

"He is always thinking three to five years out at any given moment," Mr. Wicker said. "Forward thinking is one of his true assets."

They call it Shayne's World, instead of Wayne's World, because there is always good in his world, said his wife, Jan George. There's always a good way out, a positive angle.

"If things get bad, he'll point out all the positives that are happening. He never gets too down. He'll pick everyone up by being positive," Mr. Wicker said.

G'day y'all

The positive attitude comes from his parents, Mrs. George said.

He was born to Dodie and Carl in Nashville in October 1967. His full name is Christopher Shayne George.

Mr. George said his father loved Westerns and surmised his middle name was derived from the famous 1953 film Shane . He said his mother added the Y.

His sister Brandi was named after a character in the John Wayne film Hatari! . Older brother Chance's name comes from Wayne's character John T. Chance from Rio Bravo .

"My dad was a great man, big influence on me. It wasn't anything he said -- he was a man of few words, but as an example, the way he lived his life. He cared for people," Mr. George said.

The family already had an affiliation with Hospital Corp. of America. Carl George was the chief financial officer.

In 1977, Carl George was sent to Sydney, Australia, to start Hospital Corp. of Australia. At age 10, Mr. George left the cradle of country music for Australia's capital city, settling into a suburb called Warunda.

"At 11 to 12 years old, I was into spiders and snakes and sharks. It was a great experience," Mr. George said. "We developed a little bit of an accent."

For two years, he attended an all-boys school, wearing the school uniform and necktie that went with it. It was strict, he said, recalling the teachers doing fingernail inspections.

For sports, there was rugby and cricket.

"I didn't know much about rugby, but I did have some knowledge of American football. Tackling was tackling," he said.

They put him on the 11-year-old scrubs squad. One hard tackle later and he was on the A team.

Mr. George said cricket was easy. For a boy accustomed to fast pitch baseball, a wider bat and a bouncing ball was no challenge. While the professional events can last days, the children's game was limited to an afternoon.

Mr. George said cricket is a social event, with people wandering the area.

When the two years were over, Mr. George got into American sports on his return to Nashville, voraciously. He participated in sports with overlapping seasons -- football, basketball, baseball, track and tennis.

"He was a tiny thing. His mother made him steak and eggs for breakfast every day for football season in high school," Mrs. George said.

He didn't try to take his athleticism to the college level, though his older brother walked on to the football team and played wide receiver at Auburn.

It was his brother's presence at Auburn that factored into Mr. George's selection of the school.

Mr. George drew from an interest in high school drafting in the selection of his major, architecture.

It didn't take long to change that to marketing.

"Got out of that really quick. Those guys were spending a lot of time in the labs, and marketing seemed to fit with me," Mr. George said. "I'm a people person. There is more breadth of opportunity there (with marketing). I can do anything."

He never thought it would lead him into hospital administration, nor to following in his father's footsteps with Hospital Corp. of America.

All about people

Before the rÃsumÃs went out, there was the matter of love at first sight.

"She was wearing a red dress. I'll never forget it," Mr. George said. "As soon as we met, I kind of knew."

His future wife was standing across the room at a college function. Some friends were already conspiring to set them up.

"The crazy thing is I almost went to FSU (Florida State University). Shayne almost went to FSU. So we would have met there if we hadn't met at Auburn," Mrs. George said.

They waited until she graduated, a year after him, to get married.

One of his rÃsumÃs went to a hospital in Gainesville, Fla. The CEO there hired him as an administrative assistant. That made him the official gopher.

"The CEO told me that if you want to make it, get a graduate degree," he said.

Georgia State University had a combined master's degree in business administration and health administration. It was a 55-mile drive each way.

"I loaded all my classes on one day. It was part-time work, part-time school," he said.

"I remember starting to study at 10 o'clock at night, drinking coffee."

He stopped at 2 a.m. to get enough sleep to get up in the morning to work.

The degree paid off. The Georges moved to Baton Rouge, La., for an administrative residency.

"It paid a little better," he said. He got a promotion to associate administrator.

They had their first child while staying in Louisiana.

"He so connected with the people in Louisiana. They have such a zest for life. And he so has a zest for life," Mrs. George said.

Then a hospital in Statesville, N.C., had an opening for a chief operating officer. In the two years there, they had a second son.

Then came the call to Augusta.

Mr. George said the family had wanted to get back to Georgia because his wife is from Dawson.

He was named the chief operating officer.

"Michael Kerner was in charge at the time. They hadn't had a COO for some time," Mr. George said.

It was December 1999, and his first assignment was the Y2K changeover with the computers.

"That's when everyone was waiting around for the lights to go out," he said.

The COO supports the CEO and is a jack of all trades. There is a chief financial officer and a chief nurse, and the COO gets whatever tasks are left over and fills in for them if needed.

Mr. George noted that he's worked with 10 chief executive officers throughout his career.

"I've seen a lot of different styles," he said. And all of them have been mentors.

"I got into health care because it is taking care of people. You learn the business aspects as you go. If you get into leadership, you're grounded in that care and improvement of human life," Mr. George said.

After Mr. Kerner came Terry Gunn, who was promoted out of Augusta to Triad Healthcare in Charleston in 2004.

Mr. George said Mr. Gunn helped get him promoted to CEO of Doctors, but the job wasn't given to him.

"I was considered a young CEO for this size hospital. There is a lot of responsibility for a hospital this size," Mr. George said. His advantage was that the rest of the senior management team is also young.

"You've got to prove yourself to the medical staff, but we work well with people, the seasoned veterans," Mr. George said. "The key to any leadership position is to surround yourself with good people. Trust them, let them do their work."

Shayne's world

Mr. Wicker has known Mr. George since 2000. His brother-in-law is a friend of Mr. George's older brother. He fills Mr. George's former position at Doctors Hospital.

Strategic leadership is what makes Mr. George a good boss, he said.

"He's very fair, he doesn't make snap judgments. He might think about it for a day or two before he comes back with an answer," Mr. Wicker said. "I've worked with people that when something happens, boom, they're going to do something, right or wrong. Shayne is a lot more level-headed."

Mr. Wicker is in charge of the construction project. He was delegated the authority with the tag line: If something comes up, let me know.

Though the hospital expansion had been conceived before Mr. George arrived in Augusta, it has gained momentum over the last three years.

Mr. George said it is "rightsizing" the hospital, but the timing of the funding was in question.

"This is a corporation with lots of resources, but you still have to compete with the 160 hospitals for the money," Mr. George said.

Doctors was smaller in scope when he arrived. The burn center had not achieved its current stature.

But the hospital had a great location, closer to Columbia County than its competitors, which have since started putting facilities out there.

The hospital had an identity problem, though, Mr. George said.

The facility started out as Doctors Hospital in 1973. Then Humana bought it, changing the name to Humana Augusta Hospital. When it was sold to HCA, it became Augusta Regional Medical Center. That name changed again when HCA merged with Columbia.

"We changed it back to Doctors Hospital. We had an ad campaign. We had it right the first time," Mr. George said.

Although the facility has an emergency room, obstetrics and every other service of a full-service hospital, its identity comes from the burn center.

"They are regarded as the best burn center in the Southeast. That started long ago," Mr. Snell said.

"We don't do burns because they have a facility that is that good. All of our burns go out to Doctors Hospital. We pride ourselves on doing virtually everything, but there is no need to do burns when there is a facility that good."

Mr. Snell said Mr. George has done a reasonable job at Doctors. He sees the quality ratings for all the hospitals in the region and the crosstown rival remains good.

"I like Shayne's style. He continues to position Doctors pretty well in this market, which is a competitive market with one of everything. There aren't many that make a good run of a burn center," Mr. Snell said.

Mr. George said the hospital's defining moment is the explosion earlier this year at the Imperial Sugar plant in Savannah, Ga.

The explosion brought in 20 critical care burn patients who spilled out of the burn center into other areas of the hospital, and yet those areas of the hospital still had to function.

Not to mention the families of those victims who were supported heavily by Doctors' volunteers.

Scout's honor

"What's a perfect weekend to him probably would be to be with family, go golfing and go to church. He is so easy to please," his wife said.

When his sons were younger, that meant some weekends of Scouting. His oldest son is still in Scouts, but at an age when dad needs to step back and let the Scoutmaster take over.

He sits on the Boy Scouts area council and has helped the organization through the hospital over the years.

"When I was COO there was a chance for the hospital to step in and prop up the Scouts," he said.

Donations were made for the Knox Reservation, a camp under development on 300 acres in Lincolnton, Ga. Doctors helped build the administration building there.

"He does guy things, sky diving. His dad races cars. He kept that in check during the lean years when we moved around with small children," Mrs. George said.

For all the sports Mr. George did in high school, he did not pick up golf until moving to Augusta.

"He has a nice swing, just pushes it right now and then," Mr. Wicker said.

Mr. George also spends time with the United Way and the parish relations committee at Wesley United Methodist Church, which helps with personnel decisions.

"He's challenging. He needs to be reminded sometimes there is a boss at home," Mrs. George said. "He needs that down time where he doesn't need to be the decision maker. We compensate each other that way."

There is room to move up in the corporation, but Mr. George seems confident in his future with Doctors.

HCA did a buyout of its stock a year ago to become a private company again.

"In this environment, they want to keep things stable," Mr. George said. "If they wanted me to go somewhere, I'd have to consider it, but I think they want to keep me here for awhile longer."

He said he loves the Augusta area and could retire here.

"There is plenty more to do in our little system here," he said.

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.