Lachlan Forrow, retired HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, will receive the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (ASF) in recognition of his contributions to bioethics, palliative care, medical humanism, and community service.
During his tenure at Beth Israel Deaconess, Forrow founded and directed the hospital’s ethics and palliative care programs. After retiring from Beth Israel Deaconess in 2020, he served as senior fellow at the HMS Center for Bioethics, part-time lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, and faculty associate at Harvard University’s Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics.
“Lachlan Forrow’s commitment to advancing health and humanism in medicine makes him most deserving of this recognition,” said Rebecca Weintraub Brendel, director of the HMS Center for Bioethics and the HMS Frances Glessner Lee Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Field of Legal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“He has cultivated an environment of medical learning and care grounded in humility and compassion for his students, house staff, and colleagues in practice alike over more than 40 years,” Brendel added. “He has shaped the clinical and ethics communities at Harvard Medical School immeasurably by reliably asking the first question in nearly every setting — and providing the final reflection — on the most challenging clinical cases and ethical quandaries.”
Since its establishment as a U.S. fellowship program in 1991, ASF has supported more than 5,000 fellows whose projects address health disparities in underserved communities. Beth Israel Deaconess served as the organization’s national headquarters from 1992 through 2025.
Forrow’s involvement with ASF began in 1982, when he spent three months as a Schweitzer Fellow at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon, while a student at HMS. The experience helped shape his lifelong commitment to service and health equity.
As longtime chair of ASF, Forrow helped expand the organization to support graduate and professional students working across the United States to address unmet community health needs.
“Under Lachlan’s leadership, ASF grew from a single Boston program into a national network,” said Rachel Gold, ASF national executive director. “He did it by mentoring fellows one at a time and working in tandem with colleagues across the country who shared his vision for service and leadership.”
Forrow credited the Schweitzer Fellows and their continued commitment to community service for the organization’s impact.
“Whatever I’ve contributed to ASF is through the fellows themselves,” Forrow said. “I learned that Schweitzer-spirited service is not episodic; it is a profoundly rewarding lifelong pursuit.”
Forrow will receive his award at the 2026 ASF National Leadership Summit this month in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
