John McGill, MD'78, HON'04

Dr. John McGill is a second generation UVM medical alumnus and a retired physician who spent the majority of his professional life as faculty in the Emergency Medicine Residency at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Travel has been an important influence in his life and, while working in Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, he heard about a French organization (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) working in war-torn Afghanistan. John spent the mid-1980’s in Pakistan and Afghanistan, providing care for Afghans and coordinating medical training for young Afghans. When the Soviets withdrew, he returned to teaching in Minnesota, but continued his connection with MSF, helping launch the U.S. section of Doctors Without Borders in 1990 and serving as its board president for four years.

His connection with UVM also continued, being recognized for his work with MSF in receiving the College of Medicine's "Medicine and Community Service Award" and an honorary Doctorate of Science degree from the University (2004). In 1999, he gave the College of Medicine’s Commencement address. More recently, John established the J. Bishop McGill, MD, '46 Chair of. Emergency Medicine in honor of his father, a longtime UVM surgeon and passionate supporter of UVM and the College of Medicine.

John is an active advisory board member with Global Health Media Project in their production of best practice videos for low-resource facilities worldwide. He lives with his partner, Lori, in southwestern Colorado (high in the San Juan mountains), welcoming family and friends and, especially, his daughter, Alex.