Maeghan Toews grew up thinking she might work for the UN, practice international law, and save the world. She wasn't too far off.
A research associate at UAlberta Law's Health Law Institute (HLI) since 2013, Toews has dedicated her career to date to exploring the laws around tough health issues facing Canadians.
Since receiving the prestigious James Kreppner Fellowship awarded by Canadian Blood Services in 2014, Toews has been hard at work researching organ donation, and areas such as incentives for donation, donation after cardio-circulatory death, presumed consent, and family override of consent for deceased donation.
Most recently, Toews partnered with Professor Timothy Caulfield to co-author an article titled "Evaluating the 'family veto' of consent for organ donation" that was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Caulfield said that Toews will be missed by those she connected with in Canada.
"Maeghan is a true rising star! She is smart, creative and passionate about the topics she tackles. In a very short amount of time she has become a leading expert on the legal and policy issues associated with transplantations. She will be missed by not only all her friends at the faculty, but by the entire Canadian transplant community! Luckily, we are going to continue to work closely with Maeghan. We have many future collaborations planned," he said.
During their research, Toews and Caulfield examined organ donation from both a legal and policy perspective.
They found that although no legislation exists to allow a family to override a loved one's decision, policies on the websites of provincial health authorities and organ donation organizations often state that family wishes will be enforced. Toews and Caulfield say one in five families of registered donors in Ontario overrode their loved ones' consent. Additionally, 2014 data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information said that while 4,698 Canadians waited for transplants, only 2,429 transplants were performed. Three hundred Canadians died while waiting.
"It's a life and death issue for a lot of people," she said.
In her role at the HLI, Toews writes academic papers, presents research at conferences, and speaks to the media on topical issues. She also just finished teaching Law and Medicine to UAlberta Law students for the second year in a row, in addition to sitting on the University of Alberta's Biomedical Research Ethics Board and the University of Alberta Hospital's Clinical Ethics Committee.
Toews is not new to working in a post-secondary setting. After obtaining her BA in international development from Western University, she went on to pursue her JD at the University of Toronto and her LLM from Leiden University in the Netherlands, where she studied Public International Law and graduated cum laude.
In between her time at the University of Toronto and Leiden University, Toews went into private practice.
"I realized it wasn't for me," she said.
Despite spending many years in academia, Toews said that she didn't go to law school thinking she wanted to be an academic. However, that all changed when she saw a job posting for a research associate at the Health Law Institute.
"I remember reading the job description and thinking 'this is the job I want, this is the most interesting thing,' something about it just struck a chord with me," she said.
"What I love about this job is that every day it is a little bit different. I especially enjoy going to conferences and getting to present my work," she noted, adding that she recently presented at the Critical Care Forum in Toronto and the Canadian Society for Transplantation's annual meeting in Quebec City.
Those out-of-province conferences were a taste of the adventure to come. The next step in Toews' career journey takes her to Australia, where she has accepted a faculty appointment (tenure-track) at the University of Adelaide Law School, where she will teach tort law, medical law, and evidence.
"The law school's teaching needs align with my teaching and research interests," she said.
While abroad, Toews will continue to study organ donation and the law for her PhD, which is being supervised by Caulfield.
"I'm really grateful for my time here and excited for the future," she said.