Steve Lawler, president of Vidant Medical Center, was recently installed as the new chairman of the North Carolina Hospital Association’s Board of Trustees.

Lawler comes to the chairman’s post having served as chairman-elect of the trustees board last year and several years of association involvement at the board and policy development committee levels.

In remarks to the association opening the association’s meeting, he urged the gathering of some 400 hospital and health-care leaders to focus on the true purpose of entering their profession.

“I would like to suggest that we re-evaluate where we are, how we measure our success and that we commit to a greater purpose — the purpose of improving the care and the quality of life for the people of North Carolina,” Lawler said. “That is why we all really got into this business anyway. Simply put, it is our calling. It is our purpose.”

The North Carolina Hospital Association is a trade association for hospitals and health-care systems throughout the state.

Lawler is joined on the association’s board by eight new members, including Joann Anderson, CEO of Southeastern Regional Medical Center in Lumberton; Larry Chewning, CEO of Nash Health Care Systems in Rocky Mount; Vanessa Ervin, a trustee at Onslow Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville; Dr. William Fulkerson, Jr. , executive vice president of Duke University Health System in Durham; Jeffrey Lindsay of Winston-Salem; and Chuck Mantooth, president and CEO of Charles A. Cannon Jr. Memorial Hospital in Linville.