Seton Southwest Healthcare Center

President and CEO - South Market
Seton Southwest Hospital, Seton Edgar B. Davis Hospital, Seton Medical Center Hays

Thomas Gallagher

Tom Gallagher leads the three hospitals collectively known as the South Market for the Seton Family of Hospitals. He joined the Seton Family as chief financial officer in 1983 after 12 years with a national independent accounting firm. After serving as Seton's CFO for 14 years, he assumed the role of senior vice president for Business Development. Currently he oversees Seton Medical Center Hays in Kyle, Seton Southwest Hospital in southern Travis County and Seton Edgar B. Davis in Luling.

In addition, he is responsible for the evaluation and development of all Seton joint venture opportunities and governance oversight of those joint venture operations, legal services, real estate transactions and medical office building development and operations.

A Certified Public Accountant, Tom received his undergraduate degree in accounting from Indiana University. He serves as the chair of the Austin Community College Foundation Board of Trustees, is a board member of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and represents the Seton Family on several joint venture governing boards.

Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Mary Faria, PhD,  FACHE

Mary Faria has led Seton Southwest since it opened in 2000. She is past president of the Central Texas Chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives, Lone Star Division. She earned her PhD from The University of Texas at Austin. Active in the community, she currently serves on two City of Austin initiatives: the mayor's Fitness Council and the Community Action Network. She currently is completing her term as board chair for Catholic Charities of Central Texas. A seasoned runner, she has completed 28 marathons to date across the country.

Medical Director

Cesar Taylor, MD

Dr. Cesar Taylor also is a practicing partner at Texas Hill Country Anesthesiology and works at Seton Southwest. He formerly was chief of staff there before becoming Medical Director.

He attended Rice University in Houston and received a B.A. in 1992 and received his medical degree from UT Southwestern in Dallas. He moved to Austin following an anesthesiology residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

A member of the Travis County and Texas Medical Associations, Dr. Taylor was recognized by the Robert Dripps, MD Memorial Award as Outstanding Graduate Resident in Anesthesiology, BCM and was a nominee for Distinguished Anesthesiologist of the Year by the Austin Area AORN in 2005, 2008 and 2009.

Senior Nursing Director

Susan Ourston, RN, MSN

Susan has served the nursing profession for over 31 years. She has been with Seton for nine years, starting as an SPS nurse, then moving to staff nurse and clinical manager before becoming Senior Nursing Director at SSW. Her clinical experience has been in Critical Care, Psych-Mental Health and Perinatal Nursing. Susan's passion is patient safety, the patient experience, and servant leadership. She loves teaching and public speaking and has presented several times at the national level. Her dream job would be a joint faculty position for both nursing and medical schools to support transformation of clinical services into a patient-centered team concept. She has a MSN from the University of Texas at Austin.