UMass Chan Gets OK For Lahey Hospital Medical School Campus

WORCESTER, MA — UMass Chan Medical School will expand with a new campus at Lahey Hospital in Burlington following a key approval from a medical school accreditation board.

UMass Chan and Lahey announced plans for the new campus in August, and sought certification from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education — which licenses all medical schools in the U.S. and Canada — in December. That approval came through this week, the school said Thursday.

The Burlington campus will begin accepting students in August 2024. The first class will have about 25 students.

"The new regional campus will build on UMass Chan and Lahey’s shared vision to educate future generations of physicians grounded in evidence-based, patient-centered, multi-specialty and interprofessional practice, and to meet the diverse needs of our communities," UMass Chan Chancellor Dr. Michael F. Collins said in a news release.

The medical school in 2015 launched a regional campus using a similar model to current Lahey plans at Baystate Health in Springfield. The Lahey program will be called LEAD@Lahey, which stands for "lead, empower, advocate and deliver," according to UMass.

"In the new program, medical students learning and training at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center will follow the core curriculum of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine at UMass Chan and complete their third-year clerkship rotations and most of their fourth-year rotations under the supervision of Lahey faculty and specialty-specific clerkship site directors. With a focus on addressing the health care needs of communities in Massachusetts, the partnership will also enhance diversity in the health profession workforce through innovative partnerships and pipeline programs with other UMass Chan sites," the school described in a news release.

Lahey previously partnered with the Tufts University School of Medicine to run its medical program.

UMass Chan is the only public medical school in Massachusetts. The school changed its name in 2021 after a $175 million gift from the Newton-based Morningside Foundation, the businessman Ronnie Chan's philanthropic organization.