Michael F. Collins, M.D., FACP
University of Massachusetts Senior Vice President for the Health Sciences and UMass Medical School Chancellor, Professor of Quantitative Health Sciences & Medicine
Michael F. Collins, MD, a nationally respected leader of academic medicine and not-for-profit health care, serves as Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where also he holds the academic title of tenured professor in the Departments of Quantitative Health Sciences and Medicine. He was appointed Chancellor by the Board of Trustees of the University of Massachusetts on September 26, 2008. From June 2007 to September 2008, Dr. Collins served as the medical school’s interim chancellor. Also in June 2007, Dr. Collins was appointed Senior Vice President for Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts. In this role, Dr. Collins oversees the University of Massachusetts system-wide health and life sciences portfolio, charged with leading strategic initiatives to strengthen the university’s efforts in the area and to engage more fully with the commonwealth’s dynamic health and life sciences sector.
As Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Dr. Collins provides critical direction and leadership to the institution’s continuing efforts to distinguish itself as a premier academic health sciences center of national and international distinction. Dr. Collins directs the school’s institutional advancement, fundraising and external outreach efforts, focusing on expanding and enhancing relationships with the University Board; the UMass Memorial Health System, of which he is also a member of the Board of Trustees; the communities served by the medical school; state and federal governmental entities; foundations, corporations and the philanthropic community; and international partners. In addition, he provides strategic management to a burgeoning UMass Medical School enterprise, which is home to three schools, more than 1,100 students and a number of complex and diversified business units including Commonwealth Medicine and UMassBiologics, employs a workforce of over 6,000 and generates approximately $1 billion in revenues and $300 million in research awards annually.
Since joining the Worcester campus in 2007, Dr. Collins has launched a number of highly visible and impactful initiatives, the most prominent among those being his spearheading of a joint strategic planning effort with clinical partner, UMass Memorial Health Care. This process resulted in a unified and bold campus vision, the implementation of which is clearly evident across the institution. From the transformation of the campus infrastructure highlighted by the construction of the 500,000 square foot Albert Sherman Center to the re-design of the School of Medicine’s new and innovative curriculum, the medical school, under the leadership of Dr. Collins, is guided by a well articulated strategic direction that has laid the foundation for a new era of growth and accomplishment at the commonwealth’s dynamic public medical school.
Before assuming leadership of the university’s medical school, Dr. Collins was appointed Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2005. As Chancellor of the Boston campus, he was charged with overseeing an institution renowned for its access to excellence and its diversity. The most diverse university in New England, the campus boasts a student population of more than 14,000, speaking over 90 languages. Chancellor Collins managed a university budget of $225 million and led an academic community of more than 800 full and part-time faculty. In the two years Chancellor Collins led UMass Boston, he initiated campus efforts to complete a strategic and master planning effort to increase enrollment, research support and philanthropic giving to garner local and national recognition for the UMass Boston programs; and began much needed physical improvements to the campus.
Prior to joining UMass Boston, Dr. Collins served as president and chief executive officer of Caritas Christi Health Care System from 1994 to 2004. Under his leadership, Caritas Christi became the second-largest health care system in New England, generating more than $1.1 billion in annual revenues from six acute care hospitals, physician group practices, several extended care facilities and other health care entities, all located in eastern Massachusetts. From 1994 to 2001, Dr. Collins also served as president of St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton, an academic medical center affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine.
A board certified physician in internal medicine, and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Dr. Collins has held a number of faculty and academic leadership positions over the course of his career, first at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, where his posts included Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Assistant Dean for Patient Care Resources, and at Tufts University, where he served as Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine and Associate Dean of Government and Medical Affairs in the School of Medicine and as a senior fellow, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.
Dr. Collins is published in the areas of health care management, risk management and medical education and has extensive experience in health care system design and health care system policy. He is an accomplished teacher in the classroom and on the clinical wards and a committed mentor to a number of students and professionals who often visit with him for personal and career advice.
Dr. Collins is actively engaged in service to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and has amassed vast experience in governance of not for profit and educational entities. Currently, he serves on the boards of UMass Memorial Health Care, the New England Healthcare Institute, Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Collaborative. In 2010, he was co-chair of the United Way of Central Massachusetts’ Capital Campaign. Prior to his arriving at the medical school, Dr. Collins served on a number of other boards, including those of Jobs for Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Hospital Association, and the Massachusetts Business Roundtable. On the national level, he has served as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Health Association of the United States; as a member of the Administrative Board, Council of Teaching Hospitals of the Association of American Medical Colleges; and, as a Delegate for the American Medical Association, among others.
Dr. Collins is a 1977 cum laude graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, where he served as a trustee from 1996-2002 and as Chair of the Board from 2002-2008. He is a 1981 graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine. He and his wife reside in Worcester, Massachusetts.