Edward J. Fechtel, Jr., administrator of St. Mary's Hospital in Athens has been installed as the president of the Georgia Hospital Association. He is a parishioner at St. Joseph's parish in Athens and is a graduate of Marist College in Atlanta.

Along with the responsibility this position incurs, it bestows honor on the man, St. Mary's Hospital, and the city of Athens.

Fechtel, who was named assistant administrator of St. Mary's in 1963 and administrator in 1966, holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Notre Dame and an M.S. degree in Business and Hospital Administration from Emory University. Upon graduation from college, he served as an officer in active duty in the United States Navy. He served his residency in hospital administration at Duval Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida and was assistant administrator at St. Francis Xavier Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina.

During his years as a hospital administrator, Fechtel has been active in numerous hospital and civic organizations. He is well known for his work with the American Hospital Association, the American College of Hospital Administrators and the Catholic Hospital Association. He is a leader in the Georgia Hospital Association, having served as its treasurer and as a member of the board of trustees representing the Northeast Georgia district, and last year he was elected president of the Georgia Hospital Association. He was chairman of the State-Wide Emergency Services and Disaster Planning Committee. In this, he provided leadership in developing the Georgia Hospital Association State-Wide Radio Communications Network; 100 hospitals in Georgia are involved in this program. He is a past president of the Northeast Georgia Hospital District. He was also chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Development of Share Services Program. In connection with this, he served as chairman of the Board of Georgia Hospital Shared Services, Inc., an organization for shared services in Georgia with over 34 member hospitals.

In 1974, he was advanced from the College to Fellowship in the American College of Hospital Administrators. Fechtel was an advisory member of the Georgia Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the Facilities and Service Task Force of the Georgia Regional Medical Program and lecturer-advisor for the University of Georgia School of Pharmacy.

Locally, he participated in the planning and development of the new St. Mary's Hospital, has maintained for St. Mary's continued accreditation from the Joint Commission on Accreditation and has received commendations during the latest accreditation survey held in the summer of 1975.

He is responsible for the establishment of a home health care program, administrative residency program for graduate students in hospital administration, ambulance service for the community, a hospital chaplaincy program, a program for Red Cross volunteers in the emergency room, a unit dose system, a cardiac rehabilitation program, a patient education program, participated in the education of licensed practical nurses with the MDTA -- Manpower Development Training Act -- as well as the SONAT -- School Of Nursing of Athens -- for the education of professional nurses in the satellite program of the Medical College of Georgia School of Nursing on the University of Georgia campus and the participating health agencies of Athens, St. Mary's Hospital being one of them.

The Atlanta native was also instrumental in the establishment of a nuclear medicine department, a program in clinical pharmacy at the hospital for the students of pharmacy at the University of Georgia and coverage of the emergency room by full-time contracted, licensed physicians.

He was involved in establishing a program for the training of operating room technicians at Athens Vo-Tech whereby operating room technicians are able to receive their clinical practice in operating room technique at the hospital and in establishing a social service department at St. Mary's.

In addition, Fechtel has published many articles in hospital journals. At St. Mary's he keeps renovating, expanding and constantly exploring new services to enhance the services to the patient and community.

Fechtel remarked after being installed as president of the Georgia Hospital Association, "More people are focusing on our healthcare system and many are finding things not to their liking. There are some things that need correction, but it is not enough to simply discover the bad components and get rid of them, let us protect what is good from the onslaught of over-correction … in simpler terms, we must not let the cure to be administered by others to healthcare delivery to be worse than the disease. We must gain a new perspective and act in accord with a proper understanding of ourselves, our role in healthcare delivery, and the wants and needs of those we serve. We must act with sincerity and conviction. We must act together, arm-in-arm, as dedicated humanitarians."