Crimson to Clinic: Analyzing Harvard Medical Alumni Pathways

Introduction:

Harvard University’s graduates undeniably work in some of the most influential industries across the United States. Hospitals and health systems also boast a strong network of Harvard-trained physicians and researchers, but where do they concentrate, and is a ‘Harvard, M.D.’ really a golden ticket to any hospital? Which hospital employs the most Harvard graduates? And which has the highest concentration of alumni? Let’s dig into employment data from ten Boston-area hospitals and research facilities to find out.

Methodology:

Using data from LinkedIn, we can view a company’s total number of employees and, for the most part, where those employees went to college. We concentrated our research to facilities in the Boston area, specifically Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Mclean Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and Hebrew SeniorLife. These were chosen because each is a major Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital or research institution.

Findings and Analysis:

Figure 1.

Across our various institutions, Massachusetts General Hospital, the largest hospital in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, has the most employees. MGH was followed by Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital as second and third, respectively.

Figure 2.

With this in mind, we also determined that Massachusetts General Hospital employed the most Harvard alumni. This was an expected result due to the fact that once again, MGH is the largest hospital in Massachusetts and a major teaching facility of Harvard Medical School.

Figure 3.

However, when we start looking at percentages, we see some intriguing things. We learn that the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard employs the highest percentage of Harvard alumni. This would make sense considering the Broad Institute is a joint research hub between Harvard and MIT (given the name), specifically designed to attract talent from both campuses. Even then, this is still striking since this research institute employs a higher density of Harvard alumni than any major hospital on our list, surpassing larger hospitals like MGH.

Figure 4.

Another interesting detail to note is that aside from the Broad Institute, the proportion of Harvard graduates on staff remained surprisingly low, only floating around the 2% mark. This suggests that while Harvard feeds into these institutions, they by no means dominate the talent pool. Even at Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals, the vast majority of professionals come from other universities across the country and the globe. Harvard is much smaller than most universities in Massachusetts, which definitely contributes to the lower percentage of Harvard alumni working in Boston’s top medical facilities.

Unanswered Questions:

Our new analysis sparked curiosity to scrape more in-depth data to find out:

• Which roles do Harvard Alumni fill? Are they primarily doctors, researchers, or administrative staff? Which medical specializations do they go to?
  
• How do these numbers compare or disperse across the entire country? How do they compare to other elite schools like Stanford, Johns Hopkins, or MIT?
  
• How have these statistics changed over time?

Conclusion:

A Harvard degree definitely opens doors, and you’ll likely find alumni colleagues at every major Boston top medical institution. However, in most hospitals, Harvard alumni make up a small percentage of the staff, amongst many other experts from other backgrounds.

For Harvard students planning medical careers: dream big, but know you’ll be working alongside talented peers from everywhere. And maybe, if you love research, consider a detour to the Broad Institute, where the university’s research-focused graduates cluster in high concentrations.

Key Takeaways:

The percentage of alumni hired does not directly correlate with the total number of employees. Although the Broad Institute has one of the lowest overall employee counts among the institutions considered, it had the highest percentage of Harvard alumni hired. In contrast, all of the other facilities on the list hovered around the 2 percent mark for Harvard alumni hires, indicating relatively similar proportional representation despite differences in total workforce size.