George J. Annas, William Fairfield Warren Professor of Boston University, Professor of and Director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics and Human Rights at BU School of Public Health, and Professor of Law at BU School of Law, died on May 30, 2025, at the age of 79. Since his death, there has been an outpouring of tributes lauding his life and work. As the tributes recognize, he was an intellectual innovator, a brilliant and prolific scholar, an incisive observer of the workings of law and medicine, a fierce defender of justice, and an outspoken advocate for the powerless, who brought both passion and compassion to his work.
George was a convener who was especially committed to bringing lawyers and physicians together to resolve the challenges confronting medical practice from technological innovation, financial pressures, and societal changes. In 1972, George and the late cardiologist Dr. Elliot Sagall relaunched the Massachusetts Society of Examining Physicians as the American Society of Law and Medicine (originally named the Massachusetts Society of Law and Medicine) and founded its journals to encourage and facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration by sharing new ideas and perspectives. George also encouraged bringing ethical principles into the mix, to ensure attention to doing not only what is lawful, but what is right.
In 1996, George co-founded Global Lawyers and Physicians, with the late Dr. Michael Grodin, in another effort to bring lawyers and physicians together, this time to address global human rights issues. His interest in human rights was spurred by his earlier work on the Nuremburg Code.
George also co-founded the Society’s annual Health Law Professors Conference to give teachers in the fledgling fields of health law and bioethics an opportunity to learn from each other. George loved teaching and related easily to his students. He taught with both rigor and humor, as well as attention to the human dimensions of difficult situations, and instilled in students a lasting curiosity and love of learning.
George is probably best remembered as the father of the patients’ rights movement, starting with the publication of The Rights of Hospital Patients in 1975. This book, written for the lay public, sparked a rethinking of the role that patients should play in their medical care. The respect for patients’ rights in modern medical practice is part of George’s legacy.
There was not sufficient time to include a complete appreciation of his life and work by the time this issue went to press. Fuller recognition of George’s contribution to our field will appear in a forthcoming issue.
