WHO IS MCLAREN? Hospital Group Namesake was Flint Women's Hospital Pioneer
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Margaret McLaren
In the past several years, the name McLaren has gone up on signs in front of healthcare facilities all over mid-Michigan.
Bay Regional Medical Center is now McLaren Bay Region, Ingham Regional Medical Center is now McLaren-Greater Lansing, there is McLaren Lapeer Region, McLaren Orthopedic Hospital and the headquarters of McLaren Health Care Corporation is McLaren Regional Medical Center-Flint, etc.
The obvious question comes to mind: who is McLaren?
Not a doctor or a male hospital administrator, a nurse. A very special nurse, to be sure.
Born in 1888 in Kent, Ontario, Canada to Archibald and Mary McLaren, of Scottish ancestry, Margaret Eliza McLaren trained as a nurse at Grace Hospital in Detroit before coming to Flint to serve as the operating room supervisor at Hurley Hospital in 1920.
The Genesee Regional Women's Hall of Fame honored Ms. McLaren:
"Margaret McLaren assumed a leadership role in a public institution in the 1920's when women were not usually in higher management positions. She went on to become the public face of the planning and fund raising campaign for the new hospital facility, helping to raise exceptional funding for the project."
In 1924, she was named supervisor of Women's Hospital on Lapeer Street in Flint, a 40 bed facility. As supervisor, McLaren was noted for her patient care standards and attention to detail. She led the planning and fundraising efforts for a new hospital, a 243 bed facility, raising $2 million, which was an incredible accomplishment at that time. Work began on the new Women's Hospital in 1949 and was completed in 1951. The new Ballenger Highway facility was renamed in McLaren's honor shortly before she retired after leading the hospital for 27 years.
McLaren was the first hospital in the nation to be named for a nurse and is one of the few hospitals in the nation named for a woman, according to a YouTube presentation by the McLaren organization about Margaret McLaren.
McLaren was very active in the Flint Community and the Michigan medical community serving as a member of the Flint District Nurses Association, The Michigan Hospital Association, The Michigan Nurses Association, and the American Hospital Association. Margaret McLaren was also a member and two term president of the Zonta Club of Flint I.
Margaret McLaren died in 1979 but her name lives on in mid-Michigan health care as a memorial to a great woman, a great nurse, and a great builder of health care facilities.
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