Dr. Allan Unger, who started the MCV dialysis program, dies
By: ELLEN ROBERTSON | Times-Dispatch
Published: April 12, 2012
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. --
Oklahoman Bill Merriman was at death's door with renal failure when he arrived at Richmond's Medical College of Virginia Hospitals in late 1957.
He was entrusted to the care of Dr. Allan Meyer Unger, who just two years before had persuaded MCV to purchase an artificial kidney, the first dialysis device to be obtained by any hospital in Virginia.
On Dec. 10, Dr. Unger hooked him up to the artificial kidney to keep him alive after Merriam suffered a convulsion days before he was to receive a kidney from his 26-year-old identical twin, Sam.
Two days later, the brothers were rushed into two operating rooms, where eight doctors, led by kidney transplantation pioneer and MCV surgery chief David M. Hume, performed Virginia's first kidney transplant — the nation's seventh. Dr. Unger sustained Bill Merriman with dialysis and managed his severe high blood pressure as he received his brother's kidney.
"The recipient came just that close to dying on the morning of the transplant," Dr. Unger recalled in an autobiographical account. "We've learned a lot since then."
Dr. Unger, a Petersburg native who was MCV's first nephrologist and founder of the MCV dialysis program, died March 29 at home in San Francisco at 87.
A memorial service was held April 2 at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.
"He was a true pioneer in dialysis and transplantation," said Dr. Irvin N. Sporn of Richmond, a nephrologist who worked with Dr. Unger as a student and resident.
"Dr. Unger's efforts were indispensable over the next several years in helping Dr. Hume and MCV lead the country and the world in research on transplantation," Sporn wrote in a letter citing Dr. Unger in 2004.
"Taken in the context of the time, Dr. Unger showed tremendous foresight in seeing the importance of dialysis as a treatment and in persuading Dr. (William Branch) Porter (chief of internal medicine at MCV) that a major teaching hospital such as ours must have it in its armamentarium."
Dr. Unger trained in Boston, Washington and Cleveland with hemodialysis pioneers as well as the inventor of the artificial kidney.
He bought a rotating drum dialysis machine from E.A. Olsen and Associates in Massachusetts, the only source of such machines in America, Sporn wrote. Dr. Unger explained to colleagues that Olsen made each big, heavy machine by hand out of steel mesh and the "associates" — two burly men — carried it out to a truck.
Dr. Unger used the machine to make MCV, now VCU Medical Center, the first hospital in the state to offer dialysis. "He helped to put MCV on the cutting edge of modern medicine and helped to make the school internationally recognized," Sporn wrote.
The former Center Hill resident decided to become a doctor after serving in an Army evacuation hospital during World War II.
He amassed enough credits in 15 months at the University of Virginia after the war to get into medical school and met Jane Segal, whom he married in 1947. He graduated from the Medical College of Virginia School of Medicine in 1950.
During postgraduate training, he was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis and advised to avoid the surgical career he had chosen. He then switched to clinical pathology and became interested in nephrology.
After serving on the MCV faculty, Dr. Unger moved to San Francisco in 1960, where he developed a practice and dialysis center. He helped start the California Pacific Medical Center's kidney transplant service and was the first chief of the hospital's department of nephrology.
He retired from medical practice in 1989.
In addition to his wife, survivors include a daughter, Harriette Unger of San Francisco; two sons, Robert Unger of Oakland and Richard Unger of San Diego; and eight grandchildren and two great-granddaughters.
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