Dr. Linehan has served as CEO of University of Rochester Medical Center since February 2024, also holding roles as senior vice president for health sciences and dean of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He oversees University of Rochester Medicine, a $7 billion academic health system and the largest employer in the Rochester metropolitan area, encompassing eight hospitals with 1,689 licensed beds anchored by Strong Memorial Hospital, the region’s only level 1 trauma center for adult and pediatric care and only academic medical center. Before becoming CEO, Dr. Linehan spent 10 years as chair of the medical center’s department of surgery and 15 years on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, the last eight of which were spent as chief of hepatobiliary, pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery. He is internationally known for his research on immunotherapy treatments for pancreatic cancer. In his first few years as CEO, Dr. Linehan has overseen the medical school’s eight-year re-accreditation, Strong Memorial Hospital’s fifth consecutive Magnet designation for nursing excellence, and the Wilmot Cancer Institute’s designation as the nation’s 73rd National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center. He has also led a nursing recruitment and retention push that raised registered nurse retention to 91% in 2025 from 76% in 2023, cutting temporary labor costs by millions of dollars each month. In addition, the system’s research and education investments have more than doubled over the past five years. In 2025, as Strong Memorial Hospital and the schools of medicine, dentistry and nursing marked their centennial years, Dr. Linehan launched a strategic vision aimed at making University of Rochester Medicine an internationally renowned academic medical center by 2035. He has also recruited new chairs for the departments of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine, microbiology and immunology, and surgery, along with the health system’s first chief clinical officer.
