Research Week has been succeeded by Academic Week.
Keynote Speaker
David C. Leach, MD
"Authenticity and Authorship: The Resident's Journey"
- Tuesday, May 20, 2008
- Noon
- Chestnut 1
David C. Leach, MD, is the former Executive Director of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), where he won the 2007 Abraham Flexner Award for Distinguished Service to Medical Education. Dr. Leach is deeply interested in the use of values as well as rules in guiding the behavior of physicians and teachers, believing that we teach who we are as well as what we are.
In 1993, former Michigan Governor John Engler awarded Dr. Leach the Good Samaritan Award for more than 25 years of volunteer service at Detroit's Cabrini Clinic (the oldest free clinic in the United States). In 2004, Dr. Leach was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society.
Educational Background
After receiving a BA from the University of Toronto in 1965 and an MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1969, Dr. Leach completed residency training in internal medicine and endocrinology at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, and is certified in those disciplines. He also had additional training in pediatric endocrinology, and has received honorary degrees from four medical schools.
His Years at Henry Ford
Dr. Leach was Assistant Dean at the University of Michigan for several years, primarily directing the Henry Ford experiences for Michigan students. He was a residency program director and Designated Institutional Official at Henry Ford. He is interested in how physicians acquire competence and are enabled to be authentic practitioners of the art, science and craft of medicine. He received grant support for innovative curricula for both medical students and residents from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust.
ACGME Legacy
An interest in "chaordic" organizations, the teaching of improvement skills, aligning accreditation with emerging health care practices, and the use of educational outcome measures as an accreditation tool led Dr. Leach to transform the ACGME in its mission to improve the quality of health care by ensuring and improving the quality of graduate medical education programs.
Among Dr. Leach's contributions are the implementation of duty hour limits, the creation of an electronic learning portfolio to help residents chronicle their experiences and track progress against defined learning objectives, and the development and introduction of the six core competencies for residency education that have increased emphasis on educational outcomes in the accreditation of residency education programs.
Additionally, Dr. Leach instituted several awards programs—namely, the Parker Palmer Courage to Teach and Courage to Lead Award given annually to exemplary medical residency programs in the United States, and the John C. Gienapp Awards, recognizing individuals for outstanding contributions to graduate medical education.
