wellesley.eduSPRINGFIELD, Mass. – After 16 years as chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Dr. Aaron Lazare stepped down from the job Thursday because of health issues.
Lazare, 71, said he will continue to teach at the medical school after taking a year sabbatical to address his heart problems and write a book.
“This is a bittersweet moment for me,” Lazare said in a memo sent Thursday to faculty, staff and students. “Beginning with the day I was appointed dean of the medical school, I have had an extraordinary vantage point as this institution has grown into a role as a health sciences campus of international distinction.
“To say that my work over the years has been professionally and personally rewarding is an utter understatement: It has been a privilege.”
Lazare, one of the longest-serving medical school deans in the nation, presided over a period of extraordinary growth on the Worcester campus that included a 10-story, 360,000-square-foot research building that was named after him.
Four years after he took the school’s helm, UMass was ranked among the top medical schools in primary care by U.S. News ‘ World Report. The magazine ranked UMass fourth out of 125 medical schools in that category last year.
In October, professor Craig Mello won the school’s first Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a way to silence specific genes to help scientists fight illnesses like diabetes and cancer.
“Since Aaron Lazare stepped into the role of chancellor and dean of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the institution has experienced tremendous success,” said UMass president Jack Wilson. “The history and trajectory of this institution has been nothing short of spectacular, and I believe that Aaron has been an essential component of that stellar rise.”
Wilson said he will quickly appoint an interim chancellor and will soon start searching for someone to take the job permanently.
Lazare said he was diagnosed about three weeks ago with a heart arrhythmia after waking up in the middle of the night with a racing heart and irregular pulse.
The condition runs in the family, and the doctor said it’s easily treated with medication.
“I plan to live for another 20 or 30 years,” he said. “But you realize you have to slow down at some point.”
In 2005, Lazare recovered from kidney cancer following an operation.
Lazare came to UMass as a professor and chair of psychiatry in 1982, after spending 14 yeas at the Massachusetts General Hospital and teaching psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He became dean of the UMass medical school in 1990, and was named chancellor a year later.
An expert on the topics of shame and humiliation, Lazare wrote “On Apology” in 2004, and is planning to write a book about humiliation during the next year.
