IN MEMORIAM

Marshall T. Morgan

Professor of Emergency Medicine

UC Los Angeles

1941 - 2015

Dr. Marshall Tad Morgan first decided to devote his professional life to emergency care in 1974 after having been formally trained in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the UCLA Harbor General Medical Center. At Harbor General his mentor was J. Michael Criley, MD who founded the Los Angeles County Paramedic Program in 1969. At that time, as today, heart disease was the leading cause of death in the United States and most cardiac deaths occurred out of the hospital due to what is now called sudden cardiac death. The creation of paramedic programs was intended to train firemen to rapidly respond to these cardiac and other life threatening emergencies, to deliver emergency care outside of the hospital and then to rapidly transport patients to the "Emergency Room." Emergency Medicine was a new medical discipline at the time and not yet a recognized medical specialty.

 

He began this career at UCLA in 1974 where he was one of the founding Co-Directors of the UCLA Emergency Department. In 1977 he became the Director of the Santa Monica Hospital Emergency Department where he helped establish the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center which was at that time based in the Emergency Department. In 1981 he returned to UCLA as the Director of the UCLA Emergency Medicine Center. Under Dr. Morgan's direction, the UCLA Emergency Medicine Center became one of the pre-eminent Emergency Medicine programs in the United States. Dr. Morgan recruited and encouraged the academic and professional development of the Center's faculty, oversaw the growth of the UCLA/Olive View Emergency Medicine Residency, and acted as the Clinical Director of the UCLA Emergency Department.

 

During Dr. Morgan's tenure, the Emergency Medicine Center faculty established four centers: the UCLA Center for Disasters and Public Health, the UCLA Center for International Medicine, the UCLA Center for Prehospital Care, and the UCLA Stroke Center in association with the department of Neurology. In 1983 Dr. Morgan founded the UCLA MedStar Air Ambulance Program and he served as its medical director until 1991 when the program was retired. Dr. Morgan held many leadership positions at the UCLA Medical Center. He served as Chief of Staff, he chaired or co-chaired many hospital and medical staff committees and was a long standing member of the Medical Staff Executive Committee. He was involved in the strategic planning for faculty recruitment for the David Geffen School of Medicine and played a role in the planning of the Westwood and Santa Monica replacement hospitals. Dr. Morgan was a leader in organized medicine in California. He served on the Los Angeles County Paramedic Commission and was its Chairman in 1979. He has served as either a Delegate or Alternate Delegate to the California Medical Association's House of Delegates from 2001 to 2012 and as the Chair of its Advisory Panel on Emergency Medicine. He was an active member of the Los Angeles County Medical Association and was a member of its Board of Directors and Executive Committee. He held most of the Association's executive positions and was President from 2013 to 2014.

 

Dr. Morgan's true love was patient care which he continued to provide working in the Ronald Reagan UCLA Emergency Department until early this year. The relationship between emergency physicians and their patients is unique. There is no established doctor patient relationship. Patients, their families and friends are forced to accept the physician who happens to be "on-call" in the emergency department at a time when they or their loved one may be seriously ill or injured. Dr. Morgan was a role model of how every physician should act to gain the patient's trust under these circumstances. He believed you should treat every patient as though they were a member of your own family. He was respectful, not only of patients, but of medical students, residents and his colleagues from all specialties. In this era of high tech medicine he emphasized the importance of compassion and empathy. He was an excellent clinician and he shared his experience with the bedside teaching of thousands of medical students and residents from all specialties for whom he was a role model. In 2007, he was awarded the Sherman M. Mellinkoff Faculty Award for excellence in the art of medicine, the UCLA School of Medicine's highest honor for a clinician educator.

 

Marshall Tad Morgan was born November 30, 1941, in the small town of Hamilton, Ohio, and grew up without indoor plumbing. He completed his undergraduate education at Princeton University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and received his medical degree from the University of Chicago where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Dr. Morgan is survived by his loving wife Jean Marie Campbell-Morgan, his children Marshall T. Morgan, Jr., Courtney Morgan-Greene, Shirl Monique Van Der Plas, Terrence Watson, and John Watson, his sisters Jennifer Sue Morgan, and Elizabeth Jane Morgan La Frenz, 10 grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.