The Department of Surgery is pleased to announce that Sean McLean, MD, FACS, FAAP has accepted our offer to serve as the next Division Chief of Pediatrics. He has been serving as the Interim Division Chief since January 2022 and this will become a permanent position effective December 1st, 2023.
Dr. McLean graduated from Emory University in 1993, followed by medical school here at UNC School of Medicine, graduating with highest honors in 1998. He moved on to Washington University/Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St Louis to complete a General Surgery residency, including a Research Fellowship in Cell Biology. He then completed a Pediatric Surgery Fellowship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Dr. McLean is board certified in General Surgery and Pediatric Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He joined the UNC Surgery faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2008.
Since arriving at UNC, Sean has made truly remarkable contributions to the organization and his impact in serving our mission has been far-reaching. He is universally known as an outstanding clinical surgeon with a practice that spans the breadth of pediatric including minimally invasive procedures, pediatric solid tumors, fetal surgery, neonatal surgery, chest wall reconstruction, thoracic surgery in children, and pediatric surgical critical care. In 2013, Dr. McLean and a team of UNC physicians performed the first Ex Utero Intrapartum Treatment (EXIT) surgery for the resection of a congenital lung lesion in the state of North Carolina. He has been involved in numerous national organizations, including as a national officer in the Society of Black Academic Surgeons. Dr. McLean is one of the founding PIs for the Eastern Pediatric Surgical Network which is a multi-institutional research collaborative of pediatric surgeons from some of the leading children’s hospitals and medical schools in the country. UNC Pediatric Surgery is a major participant in the network.
He has won several prestigious awards national awards including being named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation- Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program Scholar (2010-2015) and the Entelligence/Actelion Young Investigator Research Award for pulmonary hypertension research(2009-2011). At UNC he has received the University Research Council Award-James Moeser Award for Distinguished Research (2017), UNC IBM Junior Faculty Development Award-Research (2017), Mark Koruda Advocate Award UNC General Surgery Residency (2015), and Teacher of the Year UNC General Surgery (2012). Most recently, Dr. McLean was accepted into the Leading Transformation in Academic Medicine (LTAM) 2023-2024 cohort. LTAM is described as “the most robust leadership development program the School of Medicine offers”.
From Dr. Caprice Greenberg, Department of Surgery Chair: “I have been continually overwhelmed by Sean’s dedication to his patients and the missions of UNC Children’s Hospital and UNC Surgery. He truly embodies the concept of leading from the front and the Department and organization owe him tremendous gratitude for his leadership to date. I look forward to his continued impact and leadership in the Division of Pediatrics”.
Congratulations, Dr. McLean!
Read more about Dr. McLean and watch his video here