Carolyn Leach, MD

About Dr. Leach

As a native Detroiter, Dr. Carolyn Leach completed her primary and secondary education in public and private schools of Detroit and surrounding suburbs. She attended University of Michigan Ann Arbor, as an undergraduate with a major in Biology and thereafter entered Wayne State University Medical School. Medicine was a natural career choice coming from a medical family where her father graduated from Wayne State University Medical School and her mother worked as a Laboratory Assistant and Histology Technician in many Detroit area hospitals.

While rotating as a medical student through Laboratory Medicine, she discovered Laboratory Medicine afforded her the opportunity of having a taste of all the medical specialties, while not becoming the primary care giver of the patient. She sought her own path in medicine by seeking to complete her residency training in another area of the country at University of California, Davis Medical Center (UC Davis) in Sacramento.

When she began her residency at UC Davis Medical Center, in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology it required a fifth credentialing year. This fifth year allowed her to gain expertise in performing fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsies in the Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) and Surgical Clinics, as well as attending rapid on site evaluations in the Radiology/IR department. Although she completed a credentialing year, she sought out advanced training and completed a Cytopathology Fellowship at Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, as well. After her Cytopathology fellowship she preferred to return to a location with family nearby, either Michigan or California, and started in private practice in Santa Maria, California.

In 1993, she obtained employment with Braunstein and Stewart, Inc. now known as Arrowhead Pathology Medical Group. She has been with the group for 28 years. She advanced to Department Chair of Laboratory Medicine and President of Arrowhead Pathology Medical Group in 2008, and Clinical Professor at California University of Science and Medicine (CUSM) in 2017.

She looks forward to continuing to work with the group at ARMC as well as CUSM and hopes to foster leadership in other members in the group.