Prominent Surgeon Leader, Lt. Commander Shearwood McClelland Dies

Navy Lt. Commander Shearwood J. McClelland, M.D., MPH, FACS, FAAOS a prominent orthopedic surgeon in New York, passed away on August 13, 2023, after 49 years of serving patients.

McClelland and his wife volunteered for active duty in the U.S. Navy and were stationed at The National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. While stationed there, he served as Chief of Total Joint Surgery.

Dr. McClelland served as the director of the orthopedic surgery department at the Harlem Hospital Center in New York for 25 years. He was also an associate professor of clinical orthopedic surgery at Columbia University.

What he will be most remembered for is how he was always a champion of the underserved patients at Harlem Hospital.

During his tenure at Harlem Hospital, Dr. McClelland served as Chairman of the Case Management Committee as well as a prior Secretary and Vice-President of the Medical Board. Dr. McClelland also served on the Board of Directors of The Friends Of Harlem Hospital, Inc.

He was a member of the New York State Board of Professional Medical Conduct for nine years (1989-1998). For 25 years, he served as a Senior Oral Examiner for the American Board of Orthopædic Surgery.

Dr. McClelland was past President of the Alumni Association of Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons. He was a member of Columbia University’s medical school Admissions Committee.

In 2005, he was selected to be a Health Policy Fellow of the National Association of Public Hospitals in 2005.

A Life Member of Mensa, Dr. McClelland was a member of the American Medical Association and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American Academy of Orthopædic Surgeons, and a Life Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine.

Other honors include perennial inclusion in the Castle & Connolly “Best Doctors in New York” guide, selection by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of America’s Leading Black Doctors, and the inclusion of his biography in Who’s Who In Medicine & Healthcare, Who’s Who In America, and Who’s Who In The World. In 2011, Dr. McClelland was named by U.S. News & World Report to its “Top Ten Percent” list of Orthopædic Surgeons in the United States.

His family wrote, “Throughout his career, he was a foot soldier for the poor and disenfranchised. It takes a special breed of man to have the understanding, compassion, and dedication, combined with consummate surgical skills, to practice at an inner-city hospital, which is often shunned by many upwardly mobile practitioners.”

McClelland was born in Gary, Indiana. His father worked in the coke plants of the steel mills and his mother was a school crossing guard.

He was the valedictorian of his graduating class at Tolleston High School and then he attended Princeton University in New Jersey. He would go home to Gary during the summers and work in the steel mills to save up money for tuition.

After completing his undergraduate degree in 1969, he then received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Once he had his degree, he did an orthopedic residency at the New York Orthopaedic Hospital of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

He and his wife both earned an Executive Master of Public Health degree in Health Policy and Management from the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. Dr. McClelland also did a fellowship in joint implant surgery at The Ohio State University.

Dr. McClelland is survived by his wife, Dr. Yvonne Thornton (McClelland), his two children, Dr. Shearwood McClelland, III, M.D. and Dr. Kimberly I. McClelland, M.D. and granddaughter, Ola. He is predeceased by his parents, Shearwood McClelland and Zenobia Pruitt McClelland, and a brother, Richard.