The College of Pharmacy community extends it condolences to the family and friends of Dr. William “Bill” McLean, who passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday April 10. 

Bill graduated from the University of Toronto in 1964 with a degree in Pharmacy and completed his PharmD at the University of Michigan in 1967. Following his studies, he arrived in Ottawa in 1971 as a newly hired pharmacist in the intensive care unit at the Ottawa General Hospital and headed up its Drug Information Center. After his more than 30 years at the hospital practicing clinical pharmacy, he retired as the Director of Pharmacy in 2000. In addition to his hospital work, Bill spent 40 years in various capacities at the University of Ottawa: lecturer, coordinator for the clinical pharmacology courses, and developer of the therapeutics course in both English and French for Ontario universities offering the nurse practitioner program. He retired from the institution as adjunct professor with the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. Throughout his illustrious career, Bill worked on numerous research projects and authored more than 130 papers with research teams and made more than 350 formal presentations to audiences across Canada, the United States, Mexico, France and Sweden.

Bill has received a number of awards for his work, most notably fellowships from the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists (2013), the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists (1988), and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (1995), as well as Ontario Pharmacists Association Pharmacist of the Year (1987), the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacist Distinguished Service Award (1994), and the Canadian Pharmacists Association’s Centennial Pharmacist in 2007 (one of only 100 pharmacists so honoured over the last century). In recognition of his contributions to the profession, the Ontario branch of the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists annually awards the William McLean Clinical Pharmacist Award which over the last 25 years Bill presented himself to the recipients. But most of all, Bill will be remembered for donning his infamous bow ties during most of his career, which became his trademark.