Michele David has had an extensive and diverse career in healthcare. However, she states that it took her nine years back at MIT to discover “a position that truly engages all aspects of my identity.”

David, a highly esteemed physician, presently occupies the role of chief of clinical quality and patient safety at MIT Health, the Institute’s comprehensive group practice and health resource catering to the MIT community — encompassing students, faculty, staff, and their families, as well as retirees. Although she embarked on her MIT journey as a primary care provider in 2015, David has since shifted her focus to ongoing quality enhancement initiatives for the organization. Specifically, she founded and now oversees the ambulatory safety net team, which is responsible for establishing protocols and workflows aimed at facilitating health screenings for various disorders and diseases, along with managing abnormal test results.

A significant part of David’s character was influenced by the strong women she admired during her upbringing in Haiti. After her father passed away when David was just 6 months old, her mother, a young educator, was left to raise four children, the eldest being merely 5. Despite having numerous admirers, she chose not to remarry. In Haiti’s male-dominated society, she later shared with David, a second marriage would have surrendered all authority in the household to a man — a situation she wished to prevent for her three young daughters. David’s maternal aunt, who graduated from medical school in Haiti in 1956 and completed her residency in the United States, eventually achieved the position of chief of pathology at the West Side VA Medical Center in Chicago. She served as an additional inspiration to David, who encouraged her pursuit of a medical career. The passing of her infant godson from a treatable diarrheal illness due to the local hospital’s lack of essential medical supplies further cemented the adolescent David’s determination to become someone who could make a positive impact.

David’s enthusiasm for public health and health equity flourished as she obtained her medical degree from the University of Chicago School of Medicine and completed her residency at the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan. The hospital where she received training was divided into sectors for paying patients and those without insurance. This period also coincided with the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, during which David witnessed firsthand how the anxiety surrounding the disease led to prejudice and discrimination against individuals from already marginalized communities. During this time, David was not permitted to donate blood along with other residents, solely because she was Haitian.

Her ensuing career encompassed training and practicing in pulmonary critical care medicine, educating medical students, investigating health disparities among Caribbean and African American women, and providing care focusing on women’s health. David also dedicates her expertise and energy to causes that are significant to her. She serves as the chair of the board for Health Equity International; acts as an advisor to the Resilient Sisterhood Project; and is a member of the Massachusetts Public Health Council.

By 2015, disenchanted by what she describes as a mix of “the glass ceiling” and “corporate medicine,” David began contemplating an early retirement. That was when a member of MIT Health’s leadership team learned of her intentions and reached out. “I shared with him all my reasons for wanting to leave medicine. He responded, ‘It won’t be like that at MIT Health. Please consider joining us.’”

At MIT Health, David began her journey as a primary care provider before gradually taking on more administrative duties related to clinical quality and patient safety. While continuing to see patients, she applied for and secured a grant to establish an “ambulatory safety net” for the organization, an array of check-ins and procedures designed to ensure that patients receive care that optimizes health outcomes. David initiated this by gathering a team to develop a safety net for colorectal cancer screenings, which reached out to patients who were past due for screenings or at increased risk. Within the first year of the initiative, the proportion of scheduled or completed colonoscopies among MIT Health patients in those groups surged from 29 to 97 percent.

Last spring, David transitioned into a full-time administrative position at MIT Health. Her team has recently introduced further safety nets for breast cancer screening and behavioral health and is in the process of developing safety nets for prostate and lung cancer.

As for her potential early retirement? “I don’t feel I have another 20 years left in me,” David admits. “But I would like to remain at MIT for as long as possible.”

Soundbytes

Q: How did you come to the resolution to take on your current full-time role as chief of clinical quality and patient safety?

A: It was a position I already held but on a part-time basis. I was also attending to a very complex group of patients. When Chief Health Officer Cecilia Stuopis inquired if I would consider a full-time role, I felt a bit uncertain, as I’ve always valued patient care. After reflecting, I understood it was just another way to do similar work.

Q: What do you appreciate about working at MIT?

A: My experience at MIT Health feels like the first opportunity I’ve had to employ my entire skill set in my role. I incorporate my policy and public health perspectives while working on ambulatory safety nets. I have the chance to mentor and support students, and I collaborate with my colleagues in patient care. I also feel completely supported by the leadership team at MIT Health. They genuinely invest in me, and I sense that my contributions have value — not just to me and them, but also to my colleagues and those I oversee. As a result, I can bring my best self to the workplace.

Q: Have you managed to continue with your numerous outside initiatives while at MIT?

A: Indeed. I regularly present on medical racism and healthcare disparities at conferences and other institutions. I still create and showcase fine art quilts. Last year, in my capacity with the Resilient Sisterhood Project and in collaboration with “Call and Response,” an exhibition at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, I introduced a film and panel discussion on campus. The event highlighted the “mothers of gynecology,” three enslaved women — Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy — who underwent numerous experimental surgeries without anesthesia by J. Marion Sims, the South Carolina physician historically acknowledged as the “father of gynecology.” This narrative is one I began sharing with my medical students in the late 1990s, after one student asked why African American patients often exhibit distrust towards healthcare. This history was absent from medical textbooks during that time.

Q: What achievement are you most proud of during your tenure at MIT?

A: Even though I am no longer seeing my own patients face-to-face, I am implementing systemic changes that enhance health outcomes for the entire patient population at MIT Health.