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McLEAN, Donald Millis (1926-2022)

McLEAN, Donald Millis (1926-2022)

Don McLean

Don McLean

Emeritus Professor of Pathology, University of British Columbia, Canada.

Dr Donald McLean will be remembered for his distinguished career in Medical Microbiology, and to those who knew him, as a gentleman with wide influence.

Born in Melbourne to Dr Donald McLean and Nellie Victoria nee Millis of Brighton, he was an only child. His father suffered ill health; he was a victim of the Spanish Flu and though he recovered, he was never well for the rest of his life. For these health reasons, in 1939 Donald’s father and mother moved to Ipswich, Queensland. This prompted the enrolment of Donald Junior as a boarder at The Geelong College in June 1939. He had previously attended Haileybury College. Sadly, his father passed away, shortly after moving to Queensland in July 1939, suffering cardiac complications from the Spanish Flu infection.

Donald was an academic student with extracurricular hobbies. Even in grief, the young teenager was very happy at this school, and made lifelong friendships. The Pegasus reports in June 1940 that Donald, a member of the Gardeners’ Guild, had built an “attractive rock garden under the old tree.” In his final year, 1943, Donald was Dux of the school.

Following school, Donald studied at the University of Melbourne. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1948 and received his MBBS in 1950. He pursued a career in experimental medicine and initially worked teaching and in research at the university, including at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

In 1954 the Pegasus reported that Donald had received a Rockefeller Fellowship and was traveling to the US, via the UK, to the Rocky Mountains Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana. He returned to Australia for a short time, joining the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in 1957, before moving again to North America. He worked as a virologist at The Hospital for Sick Children (aka ‘SickKids’) and as an assistant professor in bacteriology at University of Toronto.

A new opportunity saw Donald move to Vancouver in 1967, becoming Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He later helped establish the Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Sciences Program at UBC.

Vancouver is where Donald would settle, meeting his future wife, Joyce. Margaret Joyce Hicks, always known as Joyce, was a young English nurse who came to Canada “for a year”. Before she returned to England, she went out to Canada’s west coast to see beautiful British Columbia – and never left. She settled in Vancouver, bought a little house, and worked hard, eventually becoming the Director of Nursing at the old Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. Donald and Joyce were both very shy individuals, both deeply committed to their work. Donald was part of the Infection Control Committee at the hospital, as was Joyce. (They discovered after they were married that they had both worked at Sick Kids at the same time. They never met).

Donald married Joyce in December 1976, when he was in his fifties, and she just a few years younger. They were very happily married for over forty years, until Joyce’s passing in 2018.

Settling in Vancouver, Donald bought a house in Kerrisdale, then returned to Australia to get his mother Nellie, to bring her to Canada, where she lived with him. When Donald and Joyce married, Mrs. McLean Senior decided to move to a nearby care home where she spent about ten happy years.

During his career Donald authored six textbooks and was a passionate member of the scientific community. He was made Professor Emeritus Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. In 2000 he received the Founders Award for lifetime professional contributions to medical microbiology at the Canadian Association of Medical Microbiologists Annual Meeting.

In 2005 Donald marked 50 years as university lecturer in Medical Microbiology. “As Professor Emeritus Pathology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada he currently delivers introductory lectures to the Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science course each year. This carries on the tradition at the University of Melbourne in his own student years that the most senior departmental member delivered the introductory lectures to first year students,” (Ad Astra June 2005).

After his retirement in 1991 Donald continued to be a regular visitor to his former colleagues at UBC, making a weekly trip in the university. He and Joyce were members of Fairview Presbyterian Church in Vancouver and he continued his passion for growing roses.

Donald kept in touch with the College and classmates over the years, enjoying the regular Ad Astra magazines and submitting updates. He returned to the College a few times and Principal Thwaites visited him in the 1970s. In 2003 he sent in a letter to “acknowledge the scientifically sound foresight of our College ancestors,” with the establishment of the school’s hospital (Read here, Ad Astra Dec 2003).

After Joyce died, his small church became his ‘family’. He was known and loved for his kindness, his warmth, and his astonishing mind. After a serious fall at his home, Donald moved into a lovely care home for a couple of years. He was happy and well-liked by staff and other residents. But while on a walk in the sunshine in July 2022, he tripped and fell, sustaining a head injury. He was rushed to a nearby Emergency Room but survived less than half an hour after being admitted. After a long and generous life, Donald passed away 12 July 2022, aged 95 years. His colleagues at UBC remember his “passion for his work and his enjoyment of teaching was apparent. He was a vibrant, dedicated, genuine and kind man, a teacher and an academic who showed us all how to be our best selves in work and in life. We will miss him greatly.”

Biography written with assistance from K. Schindell.

Sources: K. Schindell February 2023; Vancouver Sun 17 September 2022; Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, 19 August 2022; Ad Astra; Pegasus; OGC 1938.
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