The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics aims to improve patient care and outcomes by promoting research in clinical medical ethics; by educating physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals; and by helping University of Chicago Medicine patients, families, and health care providers identify and resolve ethical dilemmas. In 1983, with generous support from Dorothy J. MacLean and the MacLean family, the University of Chicago established the nation’s first program devoted to clinical medical ethics. Dr. Mark Siegler was appointed its founding director. The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics was pivotal in establishing and expanding the field of clinical medical ethics. It did this through its pioneering program in ethics fellowship training; its foundational role in ethics consultation; its close involvement in research and the protection of human subjects through an innovative concept of “research ethics consultation;” and by encouraging scholarly research and publication in clinical medical ethics. The center also encouraged the “empirical turn” in bioethics scholarship, an approach that uses clinical epidemiology, health services research, and decision science techniques to study ethical matters in clinical practice. The Center’s current and former faculty and fellows have published more than 150 books on topics related to medicine and medical ethics.