Daniel Schönberger wins 2018 McLagan Prize
Thu 28 March 2019
The McLagan Prize is awarded to the best overall Online Learning graduate on the LLM in Medical Law and Ethics. Daniel, a lawyer based in Switzerland, graduated in 2018 with an LLM in Medical Law and Ethics.
On Daniel’s achievement, Gerard Porter, Programme Director for the LLM in Medical Law and Ethics by online learning said:
“The application of AI to the healthcare sphere is an area of growing importance, but one, which raises a raft of complex legal and policy issues. Daniel’s analysis was a fantastic piece of work that drew from his professional experience and ideas that were developed and honed during his time on the LLM programme.”
We spoke to Daniel about his experience of studying for the LLM by online learning and being awarded the McLagan prize.
Why did you choose to study for an LLM in Medical Law and Ethics at Edinburgh and by online learning?
I planned to take an on-campus LLM much earlier in my career but then life happened. Later with family and invoices to pay it was not feasible anymore to take a whole year off and disappear abroad. Ten years after I was looking for an intellectual challenge. Thankfully, in the meantime the information revolution had happened and online learning made it possible for me to study at my own pace at home while staying in the job. Because of its excellent reputation Edinburgh law school was my first choice. As a matter of fact I registered for the LLM in Innovation, Technology and the Law. Very quickly I found the medical modules more intriguing, though. So, I changed programmes but chose a mix of modules that very much combined my interests in information technology with legal and ethical aspects of healthcare and health research.
What was your reaction to being awarded the McLagan and to have graduated?
According to the LLM Guide the University of Edinburgh’s LLM in Medical Law and Ethics programme ranks in the top ten. Obviously, being awarded a prize for the best overall performance of all students means a lot. I have worked extremely hard to get there, just ask my family. So, the diploma with distinction plus the McLagan Prize are much rewarding and I feel very much honoured. I donated the prize money to Sea Shepherd, an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organisation.
What did you find most interesting and / or enjoyable about your studying this subject area?
As I started my three-year programme in 2015 I immediately enjoyed the intellectual discourse with the tutors and other students during the weekly sessions. Also, the side of ethics was new to me and it quickly opened up an additional "toolset" of thinking that made me grow tremendously as a lawyer and personally.
Even though this was an online programme I very much felt part of a community and probably had more interaction with tutors and students than during my time as an undergraduate law student on campus. One tutor even organised a talk I could give in Edinburgh about a term paper I wrote that I subsequently published.
The interaction with tutors and my dissertation supervisor, not just on an academic but also on a personal level, was a definite highlight for me.
During my studies the academic and soon also public discussions around artificial intelligence gained traction. I understood its meaning for healthcare but also its potential for related legal and ethical implications very quickly. I wrote my dissertation on that very subject and enjoyed this deep dive a lot. A refined version of my work has been published in the International Journal of Law and Information Technology (Oxford University Press).
We would like to congratulate Daniel on being awarded the McLagan prize and graduating from the LLM in Medical Law and Ethics with distinction and wish him all the best for the future.
Find out more about the LLM in Medical Law and Ethics by online learning