Our Ethics Support Team
Ethics Support Service Staff
Lachlan Forrow, MD, Director
Steve O'Neill, LICSW, JD, Associate Director
Wendy McHugh, RN, MS, Clinical Nurse Ethicist
Chanel Bryant-Alexander, Program Coordinator
BIOGRAPHIES
Lachlan Forrow, MD
Lachlan Forrow, MD is a general internist and Director of Ethics and Palliative Care Programs at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and President of The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship.
Dr. Forrow earned his A.B. (summa cum laude in Philosophy) from Princeton University in 1978 and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 1983. As a senior medical student, he spent three months in Africa as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow at the Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon. After completing his residency training in primary care internal medicine at Rhode Island Hospital/Brown University, he returned to Harvard for a two year Faculty Development Fellowship in General Internal Medicine, followed by a year as a Fellow in the Harvard University Program in Ethics and the Professions, where he continues as a Faculty Associate. He had primary responsibility for medical ethics curricula at HMS in the 1990’s. He is currently Director of the Ethics Support Service and of Ethics Programs generally within Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He served as a 1999-2001 Faculty Scholar for the Project on Death in America, sponsored by the Soros Foundation, and is currently Director of Palliative Care Programs at BIDMC. He has served as a member of the Harvard Medical School Human Studies Committee (1979-83), chaired the Human Studies Committee of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (1989-94) and has served since 2000 as a member of the Institutional Review Board of the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.
Beginning as a medical student in 1980, Dr. Forrow has been active for more than twenty-five years in the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which was honored in 1985 with the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Forrow has served as the New England Regional Director of IPPNW’s U.S. affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and as a member of PSR’s Board of Directors and Executive Committee. From 1993-96, Dr. Forrow served as Chair of IPPNW’s Board of Directors, and in 1994-95 he served also as IPPNW’s Chief Executive Officer. He has served more recently as the organization’s Parliamentarian and helps lead the organization’s ICAN Campaign (www.icanw.org ) which seeks a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty committing the world to the permanent, verifiable, and enforceable elimination of nuclear weapons in a specified timetable.
Dr. Forrow also serves as President of The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship and as Vice President and the U.S. representative on the governing Council of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon. Founded in 1940 to support Dr. Schweitzer’s work when World War II interrupted supply lines from Europe, The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship administers a variety of programs designed to translate Dr. Schweitzer’s ethic of “Reverence for Life” into tangible action. These programs include: sending at least four senior U.S. medical students annually to serve as Schweitzer Fellows in Lambaréné; providing additional support for other programs (including village-based preventive and community health services) at the Lambaréné Hospital; and supporting over 200 health professional students each year as Schweitzer Fellows within the United States, who engage in public service activities through Schweitzer Fellows Programs in Baltimore, Bay Area/San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Houston-Galveston, Los Angeles, New Hampshire/Vermont, New Orleans, North Carolina, and Greater Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.
In 2007 Dr. Forrow was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for Community Service from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Forrow has lectured widely and published numerous articles and book chapters on issues in medical ethics education, palliative care, medical decision-making, and the social responsibilities of physicians. His work has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine and other leading publications.
Stephen F. O'Neill, LICSW, BCD, JD
Stephen F. O’Neill, LICSW, BCD, JD, is the Associate Director of the Ethics Support Service at BIDMC and is the Social Work Manager for Psychiatry, Primary Care, and Infectious Disease. He completed a Fellowship in Bioethics in the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, is a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Simmons College Graduate School of Social Work. Mr. O’Neill holds the positions of Director of Medical Education in Social Work at BIDMC and Social Work Consultant at the Massachusetts Medical Benevolent Society in Waltham. He chairs the National Association of Social Work’s Massachusetts Chapter’s Committee on Ethics and Professional Review, the adjudicatory arm of NASW. He has extensive teaching experience, numerous committee assignments including the Professional Review Task Force of NASW, Harvard Medical School’s Ethics Consortium and Harvard Medical School’s Ethics Leadership Group. He is the author/co-author of a number of articles, chapters and a book entitled Legal Issues in Social Work(2004).
Wendy McHugh, RN, MS
Wendy McHugh is the Clinical Nurse Ethicist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA. In this role she provides individual ethics consultations to patients and staff members, she facilitates monthly Ethics Rounds on 18 units; co-coordinates a monthly Ethics Case Conference and the Ethics Liaison Group. Wendy is as a member of the Ethics Advisory Committee at BIDMC and a member of the Harvard Ethics Leadership Group.
Wendy earned both her BS in Nursing and her Masters in Nursing Administration from Northeastern University. She practiced as an intensive care unit nurse for 22 years. In 2000, she attended the Intensive Bioethics course at the Kennedy Institute at Georgetown University as a BIDMC Kraft Scholar. And in 2004, she completed the Fellowship in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School.I n addition to her focus on ethics and healthcare quality in the critical care setting, she is also interested in ethics at the end of life.
