“Dad of the cath lab” set to retire

By Maureen Gilmer, Riley Children’s Health senior writer, mgilmer1@iuhealth.org

Whether he is doing emergency “surgery” on a stuffed monkey, orchestrating a dance party for his team to let off steam or walking into an exam room to find his patient sporting a fake mustache to match his own, Dr. Mark Hoyer has always made room for humor on the job.

It doesn’t diminish his effectiveness as director of cardiac catheterization and interventional cardiology at Riley Hospital for Children over the years. It only endears him more to his patients and colleagues.

After 25 years at Riley, the Air Force veteran who did his medical residency at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio is winding down an illustrious career tending to the hearts of big and small kids.

“I have seen some patients for so long that they have kids of their own now,” he said. “That’s really cool. You’ve gotten them where you wanted them to get to – through their childhood – to be able to enjoy marriage and children. That’s pretty amazing.”

He’s pretty amazing, his colleagues say as they try to imagine a cath lab without Dr. Hoyer.

“He is the cath lab,” said Rosie Bland, who started working in the lab in 2015 as a nurse before transitioning to nurse practitioner in 2020. “He has shaped the practitioner I am.”

She has watched as he not only pioneered many of the interventions the team does in the lab but also built relationships with families, always taking the time to go over testing results and answer every question they have.

He is passionate about his job and his responsibility to patients, as well as to the well-being of his team.

“He would never hesitate to go to bat for his nurses,” Bland said.

Dr. Hoyer would be happy to hear her say that because he has worked hard to create an environment in which nurses feel empowered and respected, he said.

“They’re hugely valuable to our team. We’ve built a team of nurses who are envied within the operating room space.”

And he will fight for them without apology.

“He has spent many years building the lab to what it is,” Bland said, “and it’s a place people want to come to work in.”

Sometimes they come ready to dance.

“He’s well-known for the dance parties we used to have,” she said.

Those dance parties were open to anyone who happened to be around and wanted to work off a little stress, especially during the days of COVID.

“We take our work very seriously, but it’s a chance to unwind at the end of the day,” Bland said.

For Dr. Hoyer, it was a way to nurture that feeling of team – of family even. Which is why “We Are Family,” by Sister Sledge, was usually on the playlist.

Dr. Hoyer, who grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, went to medical school at Ohio State University on scholarship. He did stints in San Antonio and Florida, where he trained on the interventional side of cardiology, which is what led him to Riley and IU Health in 2000.

He basically built the interventional cardiology program at Riley from the ground up, participating in many clinical trials that allowed access to state-of-the-art medical devices to treat heart defects.

Along the way, he mentored many learners and residents, teaching them not only the mechanics of the job but the heart of it as well.

One of them is Dr. Kaitlin Swanson, who completed her pediatric residency and cardiology fellowship at Riley before leaving for one year to get her interventional training in Chicago. She joined Riley and the IU School of Medicine faculty last year.

“Throughout my fellowship, I knew I was going to pursue a career in interventional cardiology, so I spent a lot of time in the lab with Dr. Hoyer and his two partners,” she said.

“What was really important to me was having the blessing from him before applying to interventional fellowship positions. I wanted to make sure he thought I could do it.”

Since she returned in August, the two have worked side by side and independently while she has soaked up all of the knowledge that she can, benefiting from his expertise, his ingenuity, his leadership and his compassion, Dr. Swanson said.

“Having his support for the last four years has been so important. The other thing that is so clear to me is how many patients are attached to him and are so sad when they hear that he won’t be doing their procedures in the future.”

Dr. Swanson joins Dr. Michael Ross and Dr. Ryan Alexy in sharing the workload in the cath lab as Dr. Hoyer winds down his practice, aiming for retirement next month.

Considered the “dad of the cath lab” by the nursing team, especially longtime nurse Lauren Humphrey, Dr. Hoyer is well remembered for the time a few years back when he patched up Mississippi the monkey for a young patient while she recovered after an outpatient procedure.

The smile stitched onto Lexi McGrath’s stuffed monkey had come loose, so nurse Lisa Bauermeister asked Dr. Hoyer if he might have time to see another “patient” that morning. The cardiologist was all in, grabbing a pair of surgical scissors and a sewing kit he keeps in his office.

“There wasn’t much room to work on the face, but we got it done and it was fun,” he said.

It’s not the first time he’s tried to put a smile on a patient’s face, but this might have been the first surgical repair job on a stuffed animal, said the father of three and grandfather of nine.

“Obviously, it’s a privilege to take care of these kids and hopefully do right by them,” he said at the time. “That’s what they deserve.”

Julie McGrath said the care Dr. Hoyer took with her daughter’s well-being meant the world.

“Who would have gone that extra step? We didn’t expect it, but to see that he had taken the time to do that just showed the extraordinary ways that he takes care of his patients. He’s an extremely kind man,” she said.

“I just enjoy taking care of kids,” he said. “Whenever I can make a connection with a family, even if it’s in a self-deprecating way, they realize I’m just a human being.”

Plenty of his patients and nurses play along, whether it be wearing fake mustaches to match his own or decorating their surgery cap with “the many faces of Dr. Hoyer” just to see if he would notice. (It took him a minute.)

“My kids will tell you I’m a pretty simple person,” said the physician. What he means is, “I’m a straight shooter.”

His patients and families appreciate that.

“I’m aware of sensitive issues and don’t want to be too harsh, but I also don’t want to beat around the bush,” he said. “Many people have told me they prefer that approach to sugar-coating the gravity of a situation.”

If it’s not already obvious, Dr. Hoyer finds joy and satisfaction in taking care of kids, even when they grow up and need adult care over at IU Health Methodist Hospital.

Like the 23-year-old he saw recently who was probably 7 or 8 when they first became a patient.

He chuckles when he remembers a girl of about 2 he was examining when he asked her what she ate for breakfast.

“Steak and cigarettes,” she said with a straight face.

Her parents jumped out of their seat, he recalled, saying, “We don’t even smoke. We have no idea where that came from.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

Dr. Hoyer, a lefty and a huge sports fan who played a lot of tennis as a kid and as a student at Notre Dame, competed in the 55-and older group for a national tennis competition a decade ago. Being left-handed in doubles matches was an advantage, he learned.

Being left-handed in the cath lab takes some adjustment.

“The cath lab is a right-handed world.”

But in medicine as in life, lefties are good at adapting, he said.

As he approaches retirement, the physician, who will celebrate his 44th wedding anniversary with his wife, Maureen, in August, looks forward to playing more pickleball than tennis these days, continuing his hobby of bird photography, and spending time with his family.

But before he goes, there might just be one more dance party to send him on his way.

Photos by Mike Dickbernd, IU Health visual journalist, mdickbernd@iuhealth.org