UMass Medical School chancellor resigns post
WORCESTER -- Dr. Aaron Lazare stepped down as chancellor and dean of University of Massachusetts Medical School yesterday because he has developed a cardiac arrhythmia, the medical school announced.
Lazare, 71, has headed the state's medical school since 1991, presiding over a complicated merger between its hospital and the private Memorial Health Care that was completed in 1998, as well as an expansion of research reflected in a $100 million laboratory building that bears his name.
"This is a bittersweet moment for me," Lazare said in a memo sent to faculty, staff, and students yesterday morning. "I have had an extraordinary vantage point as this institution has grown into a role as a health sciences campus of international distinction."
Feeling fatigue and an abnormal heart rhythm a few weeks ago, Lazare went to Newton-Wellesley Hospital and was diagnosed with atrial flutter, he said in an interview yesterday. He is taking medication to regulate his heartbeat and trying to cut back on the demands on his time.
"I began to think with this carrying two jobs for all this time, it might be time to step down from these very heavy responsibilities," he said. "I expect to return to health, but diminishing stress is part of the treatment."
Lazare, who lives in Newton, will remain on the faculty as a professor of medical education and psychiatry, continuing his research and writing.
A search for a successor to one of his roles is underway. In June, the roles of chancellor and dean were separated, and recruitment for a dean and executive deputy chancellor was begun, leaving Lazare to focus on relationships with UMass trustees, donors, and the community.
Lazare had a kidney removed in 2005 after he was diagnosed with renal cancer.
In a statement, UMass president Jack M. Wilson said he accepted Lazare's resignation with sadness.
"I know that the entire University of Massachusetts community joins me in wishing him a very speedy recovery," Wilson said. " I will work with the campus leadership [to] make arrangements for interim appointments and will in due course define a search process for a chancellor." 