George M. Fleming, ’71
The George McMillan Fleming Center for Law and Innovation in Biomedicine and Healthcare was established in 2008 on the strength of a $2.5 million dollar commitment from George M. Fleming, a 1971 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law.
The Fleming Center addresses the broad sweep of human concerns implicated at the junction of law, medicine, ethics, public policy, and the management of healthcare delivery. Fleming Center faculty conduct research on the many ways in which law impacts biomedical and healthcare innovation, including patent law and the development of new drugs and therapies; ethical and regulatory constraints on the research process; and ways to remove barriers to access to new therapies. It also sponsors a fellowship devoted to access to health benefits and service; research and public lectures on the global emergence of constitutional rights to healthcare, and on human rights and health more broadly; and the development of programs addressing childhood obesity and health-related interventions on behalf of impoverished children and their families.
Fleming’s gift also creates an endowed chair at the Law School, the George McMillan Fleming Chair in Health Law and Policy, in honor of his late father, a pioneer and respected leader in healthcare management in Houston for nearly four decades. George McMillan Fleming held a doctorate in education, which he used in the field of hospital administration. He was the administrator of a number of hospitals in Texas, notably Methodist Hospital in Houston and Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio. He was elected president of the Texas Hospital Association and was awarded the Earl Collier Award, the Texas Hospital Association’s highest award for a distinguished hospital administrator.
The gift that creates the Fleming Center is a further demonstration of the Fleming family’s longstanding commitment to healthcare and the myriad issues surrounding it. Earlier this year, Fleming and his brother, Scott, established the George McMillan Fleming Center for Healthcare Management at the University of Texas School of Public Health.
This year, the Fleming Center will host its inaugural conference: Law and Innovation: the Embryonic Stem Cell Controversy, May 1–2, 2009, in the Eidman Courtroom at the University of Texas School of Law.