On October 1, 2024, Lynne McVey, RN, MSc(A)N, began her 5-year mandate as Associate Dean and Director, Ingram School of Nursing (ISoN). Recognized for her extensive experience in both nursing practice and as a CEO in healthcare, Prof. McVey is a two-time graduate of McGill university, and completed a fellowship in the Wharton Fellows Program in Health Management for Nurse Executives at the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Strategy for Healthcare Delivery Program at Harvard Business School. We sat down with Prof. McVey to talk about her first few months on the job, the school’s priorities, the values that guide her and the challenges that lie ahead.
What are your priorities for your first year and how did you go about identifying these priorities?
I want to start off by expressing gratitude to my predecessor, Dr. Anita Gagnon, who served in this role for nine years. Anita presided over a period of tremendous growth and left the school in excellent condition. In essence, the priorities will be set according to the 2022-2027 Ingram School of Nursing strategic plan which aligns with the strategic and research plans of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences developed under the leadership of Dean Fellows for whom I have great admiration.
The Ingram School of Nursing’s strategic plan outlines five strategic priorities. For example, we are committed to enhancing our research capacity to produce knowledge that benefits the health of individuals and communities served as well as nursing practice, education, and health equity. To that end, our goal is to recruit top local, national and international students to our rigorous PhD program led by Canada Research Chair Dr Sylvie Lambert and tenure track professor Dr. Sonia Seminic. We aim to build on previous successes, including securing $3.3 million in research funding in 2023 leading to 37 scientific publications with trainee authorship and $783,000 in new graduate student funding. Funded areas of research excellence include implementation science, children’s health and nursing, symptom management science, innovative research methodologies, nurse-led health system change and digital health research.
Another priority is to offer a learning and working environment free from all forms of discrimination, with an ongoing commitment and actions towards anti-oppression, anti-racism, and decolonization. It’s essential that our student body, our faculty and our staff reflect the diverse populations we serve. Under the direction of Indigenous ranked Faculty Lecturer, Prof. Josée Lavallée, our Office of Social Accountability in Nursing (OSAN) is developing a unique Indigenous Nurse Mentorship Program. Through dialogue with Black community members, we are learning how our curriculum can better prepare nurses to meet the needs of Black communities and how we can attract more Black students to our nursing programs at all levels.
We offer very strong community nursing programs and an equally strong global health stream at the master’s level, exposing our students to the harsh realities of health inequities, social determinants of health and the worrisome effects of climate change. All of these actions reflect our mission to give our students the tools, resources and skills to address the challenges of 21st century nursing and post-pandemic era healthcare.
How has your experience in healthcare leadership prepared you for this role?
I bring my core values of integrity, resourcefulness and service to everything I do. With close to three decades of experience as a director of nursing and CEO in Canada’s publicly funded healthcare network, and as CEO in the not-for profit sector in international co-development, I have seen time and again that an organization is strong when its people feel seen and included. Accordingly, in the first 90 days, I met individually with everyone on the team to learn more about their roles at the school, their career aspirations and the issues that concern them most. It’s a privilege to lead this team of incredibly accomplished, dedicated and talented faculty and staff.
My approach to leadership is to harness the strengths of everyone, to promote resourcefulness for all, to encourage each individual to stay curious and generous so that they grow confidence in their ability to identify and solve problems as well as to generate new knowledge. As a recently certified ‘Dare to Lead’ professional in a program created by researcher Brené Brown, I aim to center my leadership around courage, vulnerability and empathy. Partnerships with colleagues in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences as well as in the McGill Health Network are personal priorities.
You’ve been in this new role as Director of the ISoN and Associate Dean for several months. What, if anything, has surprised you?
Sitting in the director’s chair has opened my eyes to the sheer brilliance of researchers within the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences in general and at our School of Nursing in particular. From improving quality of life for cancer survivors and their loved ones to advancing the assessment and management of pain to highlighting the value of nurse practitioner roles to using implementation science to bring innovations more to those who need it most, the ISoN is challenging assumptions and driving progress forward.
During the first few months of my tenure, I met with directors of many different units, Schools and faculties, looking for opportunities to collaborate. I quickly learned that this passion for discovery permeates the entire university, making McGill an incubator for the cross-fertilization of research and clinical practice. It’s an exciting place to be!
What immediate challenges is the School facing, and what challenges do you foresee in the next five years?
McGill is currently going through an intense cost-reduction exercise that will last for the next three years and possibly beyond thanks to the state of the economy in the Americas. Unfortunately, as I have witnessed time and again, budget revisions are regular occurrences in our publicly funded systems. At the Ingram School of Nursing, we have taken a people first approach, leaving no stone unturned to find savings and to transform our activities to meet the moment. While it’s never easy to reduce budgets, it is crucial that as a society, we preserve access to publicly subsidized healthcare and education.
We need to remain nimble and agile so that we can respond to increasingly complex health care needs of our aging population and a planet in need of healing. One of my first goals was to set up a Future Generations Committee designed to counteract political short-termism by focusing on long-term educational and societal needs. For example, one of the goals of the committee, made up of younger faculty and staff members, will be to identify and foster competencies the future generations will need, such as creativity, collaboration and resilience. This is a mechanism recommended by a personal mentor, Margaret Heffernan, who worked as a consultant with the NHS system in the UK during the pandemic.
The pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of our ailing healthcare systems. I am left with deep sorrow for the lives lost during the pandemic and its devastating impact on families. This will stay with me for the rest of my life. I have incredible respect for everyone who works in healthcare, from the cleaning staff to the doctors and nurses – all of whom worked never-ending, punishing shifts. I am humbled by the magnitude of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through which I experienced exponential and personal leadership growth. Here at McGill, I am working to apply these learnings to our students.
I firmly believe that nurses are well positioned to revitalize healthcare with human-centered ideas and demonstrated expertise in collaboration—by taking their place at the highest decision-making tables. Accordingly, with the partnership of the Ingram School of Nursing’s talented and creative Continuing Nursing Education team and of a colleague of the Desautels Management Faculty, we developed two executive education online courses featuring high level business school curriculum that is made accessible to nurse managers in the healthcare network. Since 2023, we’ve trained close to 100 participants from across Quebec and Ontario.
I come from a very athletic family. From a very young age, I was in the pool in the summer, eventually becoming a competitive swimmer, and on skis the winter, gradually taking on more challenging mountains. When you’re at the top of a 4000ft mountain where it’s cold, it’s steep, it’s challenging, and there are double black diamond moguls in front of you, you take a deep breath and go with confidence, knowing that the joy you feel once you engage is worth every moment.
I want our current and future students, our nurses, nurse-practitioners, executives and researchers to have that same feeling, to meet the moment of this post-pandemic era with the courage to lean-in and to reap the rewards of taking the leap into daring leadership. I am very grateful to the Ingram School of Nursing team for their confidence and for offering me this opportunity to work with them.
References
Brown, B., (2018) Dare to Lead: Brave work, Tough conversations, Whole hearts. Random House.
Heffernan, M., (2021) Uncharted: How to navigate the future. Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster
