Retiral of Alexander Meikle Davison

Tilman B. Drüeke and Norbert Lameire

Paris and Ghent

Professor Alexander (Sandy) Meikle Davison BSc, MD, FRCP, Consultant Renal Physician,Go has recently retired from the position of Lead Clinician for Renal Services for the city of Leeds in the UK. This does not mean that he will retire from professional life since all his friends know that he will remain as active as ever in his numerous other roles. These include being the representative for European Affairs at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, representative of the STA Appeals Panel at the same College, Member of the ISN Organising Committee, and Senior Editor of the Third Edition of the Oxford Textbook of Clinical Nephrology.



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Sandy Davison was born in Scotland in 1940. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, where he obtained a BSc in Pathology in 1964, and MB ChB in 1966. He passed the MRCP examination in 1970, and obtained his MD degree in 1978. In 1980 he was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and in 1982 the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London.

His clinical career started with his appointment to the post of House Physician at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh in 1966. In 1968 he was appointed Registrar, in 1970 Research Fellow and in 1972 Senior Registrar in Medicine at the same hospital.

In 1974 Sandy Davison moved to England and took up the position of Consultant Renal Physician and Director of the Regional Renal Unit at St James's University Hospital in Leeds. At the same time, he was appointed as Clinical Lecturer in the University of Leeds, and in 1984 was promoted to Senior Clinical Lecturer. In 1996 his important contribution to clinical and academic nephrology both within and beyond Leeds was recognised by his appointment to a Personal Chair of Nephrology in the University.

His interest in renal diseases, and in particular in the treatment of renal failure by renal replacement therapy, arose early in his professional life and two of his first scientific publications, in 1972, were devoted respectively to the role of dialysate calcium on the occurrence of osteoporosis and to hepatitis-associated nephropathy in haemodialysis patients. Subsequently, he worked actively in various fields of nephrology, ranging from laboratory research to clinical medicine, including the pathogenesis of glomerulonephritis, the management of the nephrotic syndrome, and various aspects of acute renal failure and renal transplantation. However, dialysis-related issues became progressively the major focus of his numerous and successful clinicial research studies, these included dialysis techniques and dialysis-associated complications.

Sandy Davison is a member of numerous national and international medical societies. Most important for our association, he first became a member of the Council of the European Dialysis and Transplant Association (EDTA) in 1982 and since then has served on the Council in various capacities for 17 of the subsequent 20 years.

His active involvement in ERA–EDTA publications started with his role as Editor of the EDTA Proceedings from 1981 to 1984. This task was extremely time consuming and, at times, even involved proofreading by the whole Davison family. Despite the major efforts which he and others put into the promotion of the Proceedings with the aim that it should reflect the research output of the European nephrology community, with particular focus on dialysis and transplantation, this non-peer-reviewed annual publication did not achieve the recognition by the international community which it deserved. In view of this, Sandy Davison founded in 1985, with the active support of the majority of the EDTA Council members, the official journal of our Association, Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation and the first issue was published in 1986. As a result of his enthusiasm and effort, the journal grew rapidly in number of issues, number of articles published and, most importantly, in quality. The journal has played a major role in raising the international standing of the EDTA, and assisted in its transition from a mainly dialysis- and transplant-orientated association to one which now covers the entire field of nephrology, as reflected in the change of name to ERA.

In addition to his time-consuming clinical and editorial activities, Sandy Davison has made important contributions to the European and international nephrology community. He is senior Editor of the Oxford Textbook of Clinical Nephrology which has become a standard ‘oeuvre’ in the broad field of renal disease and enjoys a large readership. His longstanding contribution to the field of dialysis was reflected by his election as President of the International Society for Artificial Organs. Most recent has been his term as President of the ERA–EDTA from 1999 to 2002, ending in July of this year. He presided over the Council of our Association and conducted all the business with both determination and diplomacy. Under his guidance and with the willing assistance of Douglas Briggs, the ailing and costly ERA–EDTA Registry in London was definitively closed and a new Registry was founded in collaboration with the Department of Medical Informatics at the University of Amsterdam. While President, Sandy Davison maintained his longstanding interest in postgraduate nephrology training and frequently contributed to training courses throughout Europe and beyond. He also continued the important task of promoting closer collaboration between the various nephrological societies within Europe.

Last, but certainly not least, all of Sandy's achievements would not have been possible without the support of his family and particularly his wife, Marion. She frequently accompanied him to meetings and her love and her encouragement made his outstanding carreer possible and allowed him to develop the numerous activities which have earned him worldwide recognition and esteem.

Our best wishes go to Sandy Davison for a continued active presence within our scientific community. We are also happy to reflect that he will now be able to turn to other activities for which he did not have time during his extremely active academic life.





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