Professorship incumbent David Hirsh (center) with wife Allison Cook, HMS Dean George Q. Daley (right) and HMS Dean for Medical Education Ed Hundert (left). Image: Gretchen Ertl
Colleagues, friends and family gathered to celebrate a new connection between two Harvard Medical School professors with intertwined vocations in medical education and mentorship: George Thibault, namesake of the recently established George E. Thibault Academy Professorship, and David Hirsh, the professorship's inaugural incumbent.
Thibault, MD ’69, established the HMS Academy in 2001 as a way to recognize outstanding teachers and to promote innovations in medical education. Hirsh joined the Academy in 2014 as associate director and became director in Jan. 2018.
For nearly four decades at HMS, Thibault, who is the Daniel D. Federman, M.D. Professor of Medicine and Medical Education, emeritus, led many aspects of undergraduate and graduate medical education, including playing a central role in the School’s New Pathway curriculum reform and New Integrated Curriculum reform. Throughout his career, he has been recognized for teaching and mentoring medical students, residents, fellows and junior faculty.
In addition to his work at HMS, Thibault served as president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, a national organization dedicated to improving public health by advancing the education and training of health professionals, from Jan. 2008 until June 2018.
During his tenure, Thibault helped health care professionals prepare for contemporary health needs and a changing health care system, promoted collaboration between different disciplines of health care and created the Macy Faculty Scholars Program, which develops the careers of innovators and leaders in nursing and medical education.
Thibault also served at various points as vice president of clinical affairs at Partners HealthCare, chief medical officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, chief of medicine at VA Boston Healthcare’s Brockton and West Roxbury campuses and associate chief of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research focused on the evaluation of practices and outcomes of medical intensive care and variations in the use of cardiac technologies.
The professorship was made possible by the Macy Foundation.
“By establishing this Academy professorship, the Macy Foundation and Dr. Thibault are ensuring that HMS will continue to foster the professional development of faculty who teach in the MD program and support HMS as a global leader in medical education,” said HMS Dean George Q. Daley at the celebration, held Oct. 30 at the Harvard Club of Boston.
Hirsh has received local, national and international honors for his teaching, academic work, clinical practice and public service. He practices at Cambridge Health Alliance, mentors student and faculty research, teaches courses in all four years of the HMS MD curriculum and serves as a visiting professor of education around the world.
In addition to running the HMS Academy, Hirsh co-founded and directs the HMS Cambridge Integrated Clerkship, the first academic longitudinal integrated clerkship, or LIC. The School’s program helped launch a transformative restructuring of clinical education and is now replicated across the U.S., Canada, Australia and other nations. Hirsh went on to co-found the international Consortium of Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships and co-edited a book on LICs.
Hirsh also directed and co-authored the cases for HMS’s Observed Structured Clinical Experience (OSCE) for 14 years and collaborated to create Taiwan’s National OSCE, among others.
Hirsh’s research on medical education ranges from clinical skills training and medical school program design to East Asian constructs of professionalism and the theories and sciences of learning.
Dedicated to public service as well as medical education, Hirsh was the longest-serving medical director of the City of Cambridge Healthcare for the Homeless Program and co-founded a community health center.
“We are so fortunate to have you here at HMS as the leader of the Academy,” Daley said.
