Dave Hatem, MD - Head of Burncoat House, Burncoat House Mentor

Dr. Hatem is a Professor of Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine at the UMass Chan Medical School. He grew up in Methuen, Massachusetts and was the fifth of ten children! He attended Boston College, then Tufts Medical School, and did his Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital.

Since finishing his residency, he has been at the University of Massachusetts in the Division of General Internal Medicine. Now a Professor of Medicine, his work has focused on clinical care and medical education, more specifically provider-patient communication and fundamental clinical skills. He has directed the Physical Diagnosis course, the Physician Patient and Society course, the precursor to the current Doctoring and Clinical Skills course and since 2009 has been one of the founding Co-Directors of the Umass Learning Communities.

Additional educational and research interests include the use of reflective writing and relationship as means of promoting professional identity formation, using teaching and faculty development to promote the acquisition of caring attitudes, and developing measures to assess the learning environment. A recent teaching focus is on mindfulness and reflection to promote student resilience.

He has held regional leadership positions for the Society of General Internal Medicine and national leadership positions for the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare, and the Learning Communities Institute. At UMass, he has been awarded the Lamar Soutter Award for outstanding contributions to medical student education in 2010, and the Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Teaching in 2016.

He lives outside of Worcester with his wife Michele and three boys, Mark, Sam, and Jonathan. He enjoys all forms of fitness that his joints currently allow, most consistently bike riding as a way to see the back roads of the surrounding communities.