🔒On the Record: For Navy vet Tricia Costigan, there’s ‘no place like home’ at helm of rural Maine hospital

Tricia Costigan, a Navy veteran who grew up in Dover-Foxcroft, is the president of Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville. Mainebiz caught up with her to find out more.

Mainebiz: What is the profile of Northern Light Inland Hospital and Northern Light Continuing Care, Lakewood?

Tricia Costigan: Northern Light Inland Hospital is a 48-bed community hospital with primary and specialty care physician offices in Waterville, Oakland, Unity and Madison, and a 105-bed continuing care center on the Inland campus [called] Northern Light Continuing Care, Lakewood. Lakewood includes separate units for Alzheimer’s and dementia care, long-term care, skilled nursing care and rehabilitation services.

MB: What sparked your interest in health care?

TC: Multiple generations of my family have been involved in providing health care to children through the Shriners organization. My loved ones were caring role models, and I believe that’s why I was drawn to health care. I started my career in health care as a teenager, serving as a certified nursing assistant at Hibbard’s Nursing Home in Dover-Foxcroft and later joined the U.S. Navy as a corpsman. Veteran scholarship programs helped me finish my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I worked on the administrative side in hospitals in Virginia, New York and Pittsburgh. Moving back to Maine and helping to lead an organization that provides care for my family, friends and the communities that raised me has been an absolute honor. There really is no place like home, especially if you are from Maine.

MB: How do you staff a small rural hospital with enough specialists to serve patients?

TC: Providing specialty care close to home is a challenge for most small to midsize hospitals. We are fortunate to be a member of a large health system, which allows us to share resources. We have been successful in jointly recruiting specialists with our partners at other Northern Light hospitals. Those doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants split their time between Inland and other regional Northern Light hospitals. For example, our urologist, Dr. Brendan Wallace, comes to Inland two days a week from Bangor. Our orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Jett, and one of our podiatric surgeons, Dr. Ashley Mychak, care for patients at Inland as well as Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield. We also use telehealth options as much as possible to care for patients when an on-site provider may not be available.

MB: What lessons do you carry with you from your time as a Navy corpsman or medic?

TC: The biggest lesson I observed from watching military leaders was that leading from the front doesn’t mean standing in front. It is not a top-down approach. When done right, leading from the front looks more like working with and amongst your team. I am so proud of our leadership team at Inland and Lakewood; they lead from the front every day by working alongside their colleagues.

MB: How do you keep your front-line staff members healthy and motivated?

TC: As a health care leader, I recognize the complexities and challenges of our industry and how taxing it can be on our staff. Working in health care is more than a job, it’s a calling. Our job is to keep the mission of caring for others at the center of all that we do. I hope that by focusing on what is best for the people we are honored to care for, we can bring the joy of the work back to all of our staff members.

MB: Finally, to ambitious young people starting in health care today, what’s your advice?

TC: To quote my dad, ‘You don’t have to run the whole race all at once.’ It’s healthy and productive to have short- and long-term goals. Life has many twists and turns that are coming your way. Be flexible, be honest, and focus on taking care of patients and your teammates. But most of all, listen. By listening to others, we can find many ways to leave each day slightly better than we found it.