The Massachusetts Psychiatric Society (MPS) has awarded Jim Sabin with its Lifetime Achievement Award.  The MPS represents the majority  of psychiatrists in Massachusetts and is a District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The award, given to an Outstanding Psychiatrist, was presented in recognition of his persistent dedication in working to advance the discussion of organizational ethics and promoting the ethical use of resources to enhance public health and wellness.

Dr. Sabin is an Institute faculty member, Clinical Professor Part-Time of both Population Medicine and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Ethics Program.  For over five decades, he has championed the cause of ethics in psychiatry and promoted the ethical use of resources to enhance public health and wellness. He joined the Harvard Community Health Plan (HCHP) psychiatry practice in 1975 and also served as Associate Medical Director for 7 years. In 1986 he joined the fledgling HCHP Teaching Center, which eventually became part of the Department of Population Medicine/HPHC Institute. At the Institute he teaches medical students and primary care residents, and conducts research and writing on ethics and health policy. He took on responsibility for the HPHC Ethics Program in 1999, and has developed policy cases for more than 100 meetings of the Ethics Advisory Group.

His work is nationally recognized, as he was appointed as Vice Chair of the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs and led the council’s work on reviewing the AMA’s policy on Physician-Assisted Suicide. He was also named a fellow of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute of scholars from multiple disciplines. He has authored over 160 articles and book chapters on organizational ethics in psychiatry, fair resource allocation, and clinical practice. In 2002, working with Steve Pearson and Ezekiel Emanuel, he authored No Margin, No Mission: Health Care Organizations and the Quest for Ethical Excellence. His latest book, Setting Limits Fairly, coauthored with Norman Daniels, went to a second edition in 2008.

You can read more about Dr. Sabin’s journey to management and ethics here. Be sure to keep up with his blog on health care ethics.

Please join us in congratulating him on this well-deserved honor!