LEAD@Lahey track

In partnership with Lahey Hospital & Medical Center (Lahey), the innovative LEAD@Lahey track is based at our regional medical school campus, UMass Chan-Lahey, in Burlington, Massachusetts. LEAD stands for lead, empower, advocate, deliver; this track is for students who seek to make a difference in the health and well-being of the communities they serve through leadership, empowerment, advocacy and transformation of the health care delivery. LEAD@Lahey students follow the core of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine’s Vista curriculum with an added focus on leadership, health systems science and interprofessional care.

Part of Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH), Lahey is one of the few physician-led hospitals in the country, providing the ideal environment for students to study the art and science of medicine while developing their own values-based leadership. The LEAD@Lahey track leverages Lahey’s tradition of a collaborative, relationship-centered and team-based approach to caring for patients. UMass Chan-Lahey is the ideal environment for students to develop their skills as physicians and health care leaders. 

Opportunities for students 

Through a leadership lens to continuously improve care, LEAD@Lahey students have opportunities to perform real-world community-based research in quality and patient safety, and comparative effectiveness. With the support of their learning community and faculty mentor/coaches, over a four-year period, LEAD@Lahey students apply their leadership skills to real-world challenges in health care, culminating in the completion of an action project. By graduation, students will have developed the skills to lead teams and organizations to help make changes in society and health care into the future.

During the first 18 months of training, students will spend most Wednesdays at Lahey and its surrounding communities in northeastern Massachusetts, participating in early clinical learning.

In the fourth year, students delve more deeply into the application of leadership and health systems science through intensive experiential rotations with both Lahey and community-based health care executives in greater Boston.

LEAD@Lahey’s foundational tenets of interdisciplinary, patient-centered model combined with the educational expertise of UMass Chan Medical School provide a strong foundation using an interprofessional, team-based care delivery model that is centered on the patient and reflects a culture of inquiry and innovation. Whichever medical specialty students wish to pursue, this track will propel their career well into the future.

Action project 

LEAD@Lahey students apply their leadership skills to real-world challenges in health care, culminating in the completion of an action project. Students are connected to community and business leaders and Lahey/BILH health care executives who are addressing issues of access, equity and social determinants of health in the diverse communities of northeastern Massachusetts. As members of the team, students apply a data-driven and change-management approach to developing real world solutions that improve health for underserved communities, thereby understanding the role of physicians as advocates for their patients.  

Learning community

LEAD@Lahey students are members of Walden House, an exceptionally close learning community that fosters camaraderie among classmates and peer mentors, faculty and educators. Early interactions with patients and families in their communities are a major focus in the first weeks of medical school.

Faculty mentors/coaches guide students—in an inclusive and rigorous fashion—as they begin exploring their purpose, leadership style and strengths, and effective team dynamics.  

Clerkships

Students undertake clerkships within a framework of health systems science, seeing patients as individuals and how their care is delivered with a systems-based approach of the multispecialty Lahey Hospital & Medical Center.

Core clerkships are completed at Lahey in Burlington and across the extensive BILH primary care, behavioral health and community hospital network across northeastern Massachusetts. Lahey faculty and specialty-specific clerkship site directors supervise core clinical rotations and the majority of fourth-year rotations.

Values-driven leadership

The LEAD@Lahey track is purposefully designed around the following four critical domains associated with values-driven leadership:

• Leader of self (lead): Discovering who they are as values-driven leaders
  • Through personal assessment tools and practical application, students engage in a journey of discovering their leadership style, values and strengths as leaders.
• Leader of others (empower): Developing and empowering others and teams
  • Students gain the knowledge and skills through hands-on application and personal reflection to effectively empower and develop others to thrive and achieve in a health care setting.
• Leader of communities (advocate): Becoming a socially responsible leader to serve the local and global health communities
  • Students engage in an exploration of the social and ethical philosophies related to the role of leadership in addressing the challenges facing health care. Through this exploration, they begin to relate these theoretical perspectives to their own personal leadership purpose and values and the role they play in promoting a vision that enhances diversity, equity and inclusion throughout communities served.
• Leader of systems (deliver): Transforming systems and organizations to deliver better health care
  • Students develop an understanding of how their leadership promotes the strategies and environment for effective change and transformation within a team, department and institution to positively impact the lives of people served.

Travel and housing

LEAD@Lahey students are required to be on the UMass-Chan Lahey regional campus in Burlington in the first phase of the Vista curriculum (Discovery) at minimum, weekly. The second phase of the Vista curriculum (Exploration) will be based at UMass Chan-Lahey in Burlington. Students choose where they live. Several options other students have used are:

1. Live in the Worcester area for all of your first year, then move in March of your second year—this would require a short lease* in your second year.
   *Options in Worcester for short leases can be found here: Rental Listings - 196 Rentals | Zillow
2. Move to your regional campus at the start of your second year and commute to Worcester for required sessions between August and March.
3. Live in the Worcester area for two years and commute to your regional campus for the start of the Exploration phase.
4. Live in neither the Worcester area nor regional campus area, but likely somewhere in between.

We want you to be able to choose where you want to live. You will be responsible for your own housing, knowing that your Exploration phase will start at your regional campus in mid-March.

Please send an email to LEADLahey-admissions@umassmed.edu with program or admissions related questions.

How to apply