Alumni Profile: Lynn Mikula on finding home, leadership and being open to the unknown

Lynn Mikula (MSc Institute of Medical Science ’07, PGME General Surgery ’09) is the CEO of Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PHRC). In 2011, shortly after completing her residency and fellowship at the University of Toronto’s Division of General Surgery, she moved to Peterborough to serve as staff general surgeon at PHRC — and has stayed in the region ever since. Over the years, she has served in several different hospital leadership roles including Chief of Staff, Chief Medical Executive and Executive Vice President. She was appointed PRHC’s President and CEO in March 2023.

We talked to Mikula about her life and work, and her transition from surgeon to hospital CEO.
 

You relocated to Peterborough shortly after you finished your training, what attracted you there?

After my residency I was able to locum at a few different places and try them out. I knew I wanted a broad scope of practice and PRHC provided the opportunity for that. It's a big, 450-bed hospital with a large surgery caseload and patients in need of high-level care. It's also a regional hospital — so while we're situated in the city of Peterborough, we serve a very large geography and a diverse patient population. We also receive patients who live further away who need specialized care their local hospitals can’t provide.

What has surprised you most about living and working in Peterborough?

At first, coming from Toronto, I came with a fair bit of arrogance and thought I knew how it should all be done — but it was very much the opposite. I learned so much in my first year, and was awed by the high calibre of work being done. I also learned there are so many ways to impact and improve health care beyond research and education. Academic hospitals do so much to change and advance practice, but it’s also happening in other large and small hospitals.

I've had a very rewarding career full of opportunity. I've been able to raise my kids in an environment that's really connected to the outdoors, which is very important for me and my family. I've been able to stay quite connected to Toronto. It's not that far so I'm able to come in all the time. It's worked out better than I could have imagined, really.

When did you first start thinking about joining PHRC’s administrative team?

I didn't really plan any of it. In my first year as a staff surgeon, I participated in a big quality improvement project at the hospital. I liked the work, and new opportunities kept coming up. It was a bit like the frog being boiled in the pot of water — people kept asking me to participate in things and "turning up the heat" and I didn’t realize what was happening until one day I sort of looked around and realized that I was doing a lot of administrative work, and really enjoying it.

How has the transition from surgeon to CEO been?

I’ll admit, when I became department chief and suddenly had responsibility for and authority over my colleagues, I went through a bit of a tough time. No one teaches you how to do this as a physician, so you have to learn as you go.

The transition to hospital CEO, though, is another thing altogether. As a chief of staff, you are still a physician leading physicians. As CEO, I have to know about finances, staffing, building services, housekeeping. I need to understand the external political context. The jump was significant. So, I’ve had to put a lot of concerted effort into learning all those other parts of the hospital that I wasn't exposed to as a physician leader. It’s a very different kind of role, but I love it.

As CEO, you no longer perform surgeries. What do you miss most about your surgical practice?

I don't miss being up at three o'clock in the morning. I don't miss being sleep deprived. I still speak to patients very regularly, and my work is still very clinically oriented. The purpose of the hospital is to deliver patient care, and my job is to support that purpose, so I don't feel disconnected from my passion for patient care.

What I do miss is all the time I spent with my fellow surgeons. There's a certain camaraderie that develops in the operating room that just doesn’t exist anywhere else. Sometimes it's tense, sometimes it's fun, and I do miss it. Surgeons are my tribe and I don't get to spend as much time with them as I would like.

What’s been the most valuable lesson or skill you learned during your time with the Division of General Surgery that you’ve been able to apply in your leadership role?

Training to be a general surgeon at U of T taught me so much more than just how to perform surgery. I learned I would never stop learning, that I’d have to continue to adapt as the state of practice changes, and my training equipped me for that lifelong journey. I learned how to stay calm under pressure and deal with complex situations in a rational way. I learned how to work within a team during a stressful situation and keep the team focused on the ultimate outcome.

The biggest lesson I learned is no matter who you are — and U of T surgery is blessed with world-class researchers, people with really, really big positions doing complicated, leading-edge work — at the end of the day, it all comes down to the patient in front of you. That ethos was really prominent in my training, and it's carried through to the work I do today. I spend a lot of time in boardrooms and on Zoom meetings now, but it still all comes down to the patient in the bed, and how we can do best by them. That's the most important thing. That's why we're all in this profession.

What words of wisdom do you have for physicians as they transition through their careers?

I would tell them it’s tough to plan your career when you're in the middle of residency. Residency is overwhelming. It's hard to figure out what kind of a life you want when you're in the thick of it. So, make the best choices you can in the moment, but be open to the fact that what you want may change.

If you had told me when I finished my residency that this is what I'd be doing, I would have said, “No way, that's not me.” The life of a surgeon is wonderful and rewarding, and it will bring a lot of opportunities. I encourage you to be open to those opportunities and don’t be afraid to seize them as they come, even if it wasn’t quite your plan!