Michael was born and raised on New York’s Upper Westside and spent his youth playing on the local sidewalks and in Central Park. His path to medicine was a circuitous one that included work as a security guard, bike messenger, assistant handyman in a psychiatric hospital and vendor at Madison Square Garden. Following graduation from Hobart College in 1985 with a degree in Anthropology-Sociology and a minor in Psychology he toiled for the National Hockey League front office as a “jack of all trades.” He had always dreamed of being a Paramedic and loved the show Emergency as a child which led him to his first taste of medicine in 1987. After training as an EMT he was hired by the NYC Emergency Medical Service where he became a Paramedic and spent 9 exciting years racing around Harlem and Midtown Manhattan while dealing with thousands of medical emergencies. Michael returned to school at Columbia/Fordham Universities to complete his pre-medical requirements. He ultimately was accepted at Albany Medical College where he developed a love for internal medicine and met his future wife. Michael completed residency and chief residency at Baystate Medical Center in internal medicine.
Michael was named Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 2005-2006. In 2006 he spent the year as a Hartford Faculty Scholar in the Boston University Center of Excellence for Geriatrics. He has presented abstracts and workshops at many regional, national and international conferences. Michael has been named as the Co-Chair for Innovations in Medical Education for the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) National Conference in 2013 and is a founding member of the SGIM TEACH certificate program. He was recently named Co-Chair for the SGIM Education Committee.
Michael’s interests include development and implementation of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH), Radical office redesign, Innovations in graduate/ and undergraduate medical education as well as quality improvement.