Lance Majors, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine. Here, he shares his path to medicine, his professional interests, and what he loves about UMMC.

What is your professional background? 

I am a thoroughbred Mississippi doctor with my time in medical school starting at UMMC in 2012, a year after finishing my undergraduate degree at Ole Miss.  I completed internal medicine residency in 2019 within our Department of Medicine.  Late in residency I developed an interest in point of care ultrasound and procedural education and became engaged in professional development toward improved competency in both.  After residency, I immediately joined UMMC faculty in the division of Hospital Medicine.  

Tell us about what you do at UMMC.  

My role can be summed up as an academic hospitalist and proceduralist.  As an academic hospitalist I am involved in both medical student and resident education, most commonly with bedside teaching on medicine ward teams, but also in other capacities including the residency healthcare disparities curriculum, point of care ultrasound curriculum, and residency program recruitment. The curriculum roles keep me active in resident and student education even when I’m serving patients on a private hospital medicine team, and I absolutely love that! As the director of our division’s procedure service, I integrate my interest in procedures with education. I perform many of the common bedside “needle procedures” that are done in the hospital including lumbar puncture, paracentesis, thoracentesis, needle aspiration, and arthrocentesis.  I enjoy integrating ultrasound knowledge with procedural skills to ensure best practice and better patient outcomes.     

What advice would you give to someone pursuing medicine today?  

Medicine is both a privilege and an opportunity. You are privileged to be one of the most impactful persons that someone meets in a day, healing them or comforting them in ways that only a physician can.  We succeed with a firm grasp on medical knowledge, compassion, and empathy. The opportunity of medicine is to experience the reward that goes with that.   

How has COVID-19 changed the way you practice medicine? 

This goes along with my statement of advice that we, as physicians, have a firm grasp on medical knowledge, compassion, and empathy that we use to formulate plans that are impactful to patients and meaningful toward health outcomes.  With that in mind, I don’t think that any one illness changes how we practice medicine on an individual level. More globally, however, COVID-19 has brought about many processes and standards that are unique compared to prior to COVID-19. I’ve become more engaged in developing standards of practice, public health, and research in many ways that I don’t think I would have before COVID-19. 

What do you like most about UMMC?  

Opportunity!  I’m from a small town with a narrow range of opportunities, so when a large academic medical center like UMMC tells me there’s something I can do to be involved and engaged, it’s exciting to me. UMMC is relatively young in terms of academic medical centers, so there are many opportunities in so many facets of the institution.  Collaboration with my amazing colleagues and staff in patient care, education, research, and professional development is all possible. If you have an idea, you can make it grow into an outcome and change for the better here.   

Tell us something about yourself that people may not know.  

I’m a 3rd generation American.  My maternal grandparents immigrated from the Netherlands in 1949 to leave a war devastated Europe for a new life. I’m proud of the perspective this background has given me on culture and people from diverse backgrounds and the opportunity the United States offers.