Burt selected as Macy Faculty Scholar
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Clinical assistant professor Leah Burt, PhD ’20, MS ’10, ANP-BC, is one of five scholars nationwide to be chosen for the 2025 class of Macy Faculty Scholars, a highly selective program designed to identify and nurture the careers of promising educators in nursing and medicine.
Burt is the first faculty member from the UIC College of Nursing, and only the third from UIC, to be selected for the program since it launched in 2010.
The program provides scholars with resources – protected time, mentorship and a professional network of colleagues – to help them become leaders in health professions education.
“I’m so honored to be selected,” Burt says. “My area of scholarship is educational research, and this program is focused on developing educational leaders. Access to incredible mentoring and the community of Macy Scholars will give me a great foundation for the next step in my career.”
Burt is a board-certified adult primary care nurse practitioner and is director of educational quality assurance at the UIC Simulation and Integrative Learning (SAIL) Institute.
Named an Emerging Leader (“Rising Star”) by the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine in 2023, she’s interested in developing evidenced-based strategies to teach diagnostic reasoning, particularly with experiential and simulation-based learning interventions.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Burt to the 2025 class of Macy Faculty Scholars,” said Dr. Holly J. Humphrey, president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. “Dr. Burt comes to the program with a wealth of knowledge and experience. We are eager to learn alongside her as she works to enhance diagnostic competence.”
During her two years in the program, Burt will work on a project called Lead-Dx (Learning Equity, Addressing Disparities in Diagnosis). She’ll develop a simulation-based curriculum to teach health professions students to better understand and mitigate diagnostic disparities.
Burt says one example of a diagnostic disparity is that Black Americans are 35% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia compared to white Americans, even though they are almost twice as likely to develop dementia.
“Biases play a huge role,” Burt says. “My hope is that [Lead-Dx] could be implemented in our DNP program to teach students not only to better understand diagnostic disparities, but also to be change-leaders in practice.”
The program will cover 50% of Burt’s salary for two years, starting in July, allowing her to undertake professional development and to develop and evaluate the Lead-Dx curriculum. The program will also pair Burt with a project mentor and a peer mentor and cover her tuition to enroll in one Harvard Macy Institute course.
The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation supports projects in three priority areas: promoting diversity, equity and belonging; increasing collaboration among future health professionals; and preparing future health professionals to navigate ethical dilemmas.