The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics was founded in 1984 with generous support from the family of Dorothy J. MacLean. It was the nation’s first program devoted to clinical medical ethics and it remains the leading center for the teaching and study of clinical ethics. In the three years that U.S. News and World Report ranked U.S. ethics programs, the MacLean Center was chosen in each year as the #1 ethics program in the United States.

Since 1986, the MacLean Center has directed a renowned ethics fellowship program. More than 200 fellows have been trained at the MacLean Center. Most fellows have been physicians, but we have also trained nurses, legal scholars, theologians, and philosophers. Our fellows continue to perform groundbreaking research in medical ethics. Former fellows have published more than 50 books in the field. Thirty of our past fellows now direct ethics programs in hospitals and research centers in the United States, Canada and Europe. Twenty former fellows are now full professors at academic institutions, and eight hold endowed professorial chairs.

The Center is deeply involved with clinical medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals. Since 1984, we have provided a hospital-wide ethics consultation service to help clinicians navigate medical-ethical dilemmas arising in clinical practice. Since its inception, the ethics service has provided consultation for more than 2,000 cases.

The Center is actively engaged in the instruction of medical ethics for both medical students and undergraduates at the University of Chicago. The required first-year Pritzker School of Medicine course, The Doctor-Patient Relationship, is consistently ranked by students as one of the best pre-clinical medical school courses. At the undergraduate college level, Introduction to Medical Ethics provides a survey of major issues in medical ethics. Other university courses taught by our faculty include Advanced Medical Ethics and Medical Ethics and Religious Traditions.

The MacLean Center strives to address medical-ethical issues from multidisciplinary perspectives. Each year, the Center directs and co-sponsors several innovative conferences and workshops at the University of Chicago. These include annual joint conferences with the Law School and the Harris School of Public Policy, year-long interdisciplinary faculty seminars, and an annual MacLean Center Fellows’ Reunion Conference. These events draw speakers and audiences from a wide range of disciplines.

Our distinguished faculty members are involved in all aspects of Center activity. Faculty is drawn from the departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, Obstetrics-Gynecology, and Psychiatry, with adjunct faculty from the Law School, the Graduate School of Business, the Harris School of Public Policy, and the Divisions of the Social Sciences and the Humanities. MacLean faculty members are extremely active academically, having published more than 20 books and many peer-reviewed articles in leading medical and ethics journals.