Jack Leland honors a Carolina medicine legacy
Both his parents earned their medical degrees from the UNC School of Medicine and were trusted physicians in Tarboro.
Editor’s note: Jack Leland matched with NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center on Match Day.
Growing up in Tarboro, North Carolina, Jack Leland saw firsthand the impact of medicine. His parents, Dr. Bill Leland (MD ’87) and Dr. Lisa Sykes Leland (MD ’89), were pillars in the small town, known not only for their medical expertise but for their deep commitment to service.
“People would come up to my parents in Walmart and ask about a rash even though neither of them are dermatologists,” he said. “People knew who they were and trusted them to ask for help.”
Now, he is preparing for his own career in medicine, after learning where he will continue his training as a resident physician on Match Day.
Finding his own path to medicine
He didn’t always plan to follow his parents’ footsteps. As an undergraduate at UNC, he was torn between premed and journalism. Then he worked with Dr. Eugene Maynard at a farmworker clinic in Benson, North Carolina.
“Doing gap years after college was important for me to figure out whether medicine was something I wanted to do for myself and not just because my parents did it,” he said. “That was a good way for me to decide that it was something I wanted for myself.”
“That was a powerful introduction to primary care for me,” he said. “I saw how we could be part of patients’ lives in a meaningful way. And not just for the patient, but for their families and communities as well.”
The same philosophy has long guided Leland’s father, who sought residency programs where he could strengthen his medical Spanish, ultimately training at the University of Texas in San Antonio. That decision later led to participation in multiple medical mission trips over the years.
“Throughout my career, that has been the most rewarding part of medicine,” said Bill Leland, now a gastroenterologist at ECU Health. “The moments when you’re not serving the job but serving the patient.”
Once at the UNC School of Medicine, Jack Leland began putting that same approach into practice.
Right away, he became involved in the Student Health Action Coalition, providing free health care and services to underserved populations at the student-led SHAC clinic. He also joined the Comprehensive Advanced Medical Program of Spanish, the medical Spanish curriculum designed to train physicians to care for the growing Latino patient population.
He was selected as a 2024-25 Schweitzer Fellow and completed a year-long project focused on improving health literacy for farmworkers living with diabetes. He’s still drawn to hospital medicine and primary care to continue advocating for Spanish-speaking patients.
Continuing the legacy
Over his eight years at Carolina, Jack Leland had many of the same experiences that his parents did. They met in Chapel Hill as undergraduates and attended medical school together before building a life with a shared purpose. But in 2004, Lisa Sykes Leland died in a car accident before seeing her son get his medical degree or match for a residency.
“I think Lisa would encourage him to make decisions that are important to him, important to his family and important to those that he serves,” his father said. “She always lived for something greater than herself.”
In his residency, Jack Leland will carry forth the values shaped by family, service and a Carolina education.
“Wherever we go,” Bill Leland said, “we take Carolina with us.”
