During lunch on Friday, February 19th, Concord Academy’s Science Club and Medical Club invited Dr. Timothy Liesching to speak to the community about COVID-19 and its impact on the healthcare system.
Dr. Timothy Liesching is the Chief Medical Officer at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center (LHMC), where he has practiced medicine for thirteen years. He is the former President of the Medical Staff Association at LHMC, former Chair of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and sits on numerous LHMC committees, including the Board of Governors. Prior to joining LHMC, Dr. Liesching was a staff physician at Rhode Island, Miriam and Memorial Hospitals in Rhode Island, where he was also on the faculty of Brown Medical School. Prior to entering medical school, Dr. Liesching enjoyed a successful career in commercial banking at the Bank of Boston, and is also a current CA parent.
In his talk, Dr. Liesching gave a review of the pandemic by describing COVID-19 and other Coronavirus cases in relation to previous epidemics/pandemics, reviewing COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, and illustrating how hospitals have managed high patient volumes. He then summed up his talk by reflecting upon what we and the medical community have learned from this experience, before opening up the floor to answer students and faculties’ questions.
He stated at the beginning of his talk, “I designed this discussion to target our esteemed audience of medically-inclined and science-inclined students.” Dr. Liesching achieved this by supporting his talk with a strong visual presentation, including multiple infographics, images, and graphs. As a result of this, the material he covered was approachable for students of varying levels of interest and skill.
One of the student attendees Ken Zhang ’23 stated, “I definitely found that Dr. Liesching’s talk was very informative. It, in a sense, both refreshed my understanding of COVID-19 and related matters, and cleared many of my doubts about them. I think inviting a CA-related speaker, [who] involved in the workforce around combatting COVID-19, is a very helpful choice, because they would know best what CA already does to limit the spread.”
Similarly, Ben Stumpf ’88, the Computer Science Department Head, added, “I was so grateful for the slideshow he created to help lay out the background and current situation with the pandemic. We were lucky that someone doing such important frontline work through an exhausting year could make this happen for CA students and faculty.”
Dr. Liesching’s talk on Friday was, with no doubt, incredibly informative to the CA community—students and faculty alike. For those who are interested, the recording to the meeting will be available to the entire community shortly, and both the Science Club and Medical Club are planning to host more speakers in the future as well.