Photo: Rob Carlin
The joy, excitement and privilege of teaching medical students will be on display at the 2026 Last Lecture at UMass Chan Medical School on Thursday, April 30.
Howard J. Sachs, MD, associate professor of medicine, who received the 2025 Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Teaching and the Manning Prize for Excellence in Teaching, will deliver the Last Lecture.
“It’s an honor to deliver the Last Lecture to a community of distinguished educators. While the occasion honors individual achievement, the focus of this lecture is on our students,” Dr. Sachs said. “It is a celebration of teaching and what I am going to be celebrating is what I’ve learned as an educator from our students. Their curiosity, persistence, and most of all, their kindness have shaped every step of my journey and made this work possible.”
His lecture, “The Inevitable Journey,” traces the arc of a career in medical education through personal stories from the classroom and beyond. It reflects not only his experiences with students, but also the countless educators whose generosity in sharing their knowledge and perspective ultimately shaped his approach to teaching.
“There is no such thing as a solitary achievement in education. Every accomplishment reflects a much larger collective effort,” Sachs said. “We stand upon the shoulders of so many others. Anything I’ve done or created has emerged purely by listening carefully, responding deliberately and staying fully committed to the learner.”
“If this lecture carries a single purpose, it is to inspire the next generation of educators,” he added. “Through these shared and personal experiences, I hope to convey the lasting impact we have on those we teach.”
The Last Lecture is presented each year at the Educational Recognition Awards ceremony and provides the recipient of the Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Teaching the opportunity to share a message with students and colleagues as if it were the last lecture they would ever give.
Sachs joined UMass Chan in 1991. He received his undergraduate degree from Clark University and earned his medical degree from the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. In 2012, Sachs launched the 12 Days in March website, a learning tool for medical students and instructors to help them prepare for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 exam. In 2026, he started the RISEuP Method, a guide to help improve USMLE exam performance.
The 2026 Educational Recognition Awards and Last Lecture, celebrating the exemplary UMass Chan faculty educators across the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing, is being held on Thursday, April 30, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Albert Sherman Center Auditorium. The celebration will be livestreamed on the UMass Chan YouTube channel.
