McLean Receives SCCMA Citizen's Award

Margaret R. McLean, Center associate director and director of bioethics, received the Santa Clara County Medical Association Citizen's Award at the association’s 2017 awards banquet June 6, This award is given to an individual "who is not a member of the Medical Association, who has achieved public recognition for a significant contribution in the health field."

In her acceptance speech, McLean commented:

"My introduction to the Medical Association came when I was invited by the late Dr. Ann Moore, then chair of the Bioethics Committee at O’Connor Hospital, to attend a meeting of the SCCMA Bioethics Committee—some of you perhaps were there that night; some of you were still in medical school!  The discussion was lively (as it continues to be).  The focus of our conversation was medical decision-making for incapacitated, unrepresented patients—those patients who, for one reason or another, can no longer decide for themselves and have no surrogate decision-maker either willing or able to step-in.  At the time, every hospital in the county was struggling with how to care for these patients—and, as we are all aware, the struggle continues.

It was this discussion, while I was still in graduate school, that sparked my enduring interest in vulnerable patient populations, especially those who are unrepresented and those who are publicly conserved.  I continue to advocate on behalf of these patients encouraging both upstream solutions, such as value identification and advance care planning, and downstream policies, such as the model policy we began to draft that evening many years ago.

I thank you for the introduction to these patients and encourage you to continue to engage your moral imagination on their behalf and to continue to care for those who have no other voice but ours."