Transplant

January 16, 2025

Kidney transplant leader Robert Richie is mourned

He helped build one of the leading kidney transplant programs in the country, both in terms of the number of transplants performed annually, and in long-term organ function and patient survival rates.

Robert E. Richie, MD, professor emeritus of Surgery, a surgeon who performed thousands of kidney transplants at Vanderbilt and, through his research, was a pioneer in the field of kidney transplantation worldwide, died Jan. 13 at his home in Nashville. He was 91.

Robert E. Richie, MD
Robert E. Richie, MD

Dr. Richie was born in 1933 in Bourbon County, Kentucky, in a house, he would recall, with no electricity or indoor plumbing. He earned a degree in biology from the University of Kentucky in 1955 and graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1959. He completed a general surgery residency at Vanderbilt in 1965, and during those five years also completed a clinical fellowship with the American Cancer Society.

After residency, Dr. Richie served for five years in the U.S. Air Force, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and was chief of the Thoracic Surgical Service at Keesler Air Force Base on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where he directed the thoracic surgery residency program.

After his discharge from the Air Force in 1970, Dr. Richie returned to Vanderbilt, where he spent the rest of his career as a surgeon, teacher, researcher and leader.

Vanderbilt had performed its first kidney transplant in 1962 — the first organ transplant in Nashville. In 1970, Vanderbilt surgeons performed the institution’s first living donor kidney transplant. The need for transplants, and the increasing success of the procedures, meant that there was an opportunity to grow the program and save lives.

In 1971, Dr. Richie was appointed surgical director of Vanderbilt’s kidney transplantation program. During the next three decades, he and H. Keith Johnson, MD, the program’s medical director, built one of the leading kidney transplant programs in the country, both in terms of the number of transplants performed annually, and in long-term organ function and patient survival rates.

“Bob took an experimental surgical program and turned kidney transplant into a routine Vanderbilt special area, working for decades with his partner, Keith Johnson,” said J. Harold Helderman, MD, who succeeded Johnson as the program’s medical director in 1999. Helderman and heart transplant surgeon Bill Frist, MD, were founding directors of the Vanderbilt Transplant Center, established in 1988.

Dr. Richie “welcomed me into the group 36 years ago and together, along with Bill Frist, we created one of the top five kidney transplant programs in America,” said Helderman, professor emeritus of Medicine and of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology.

By October 2022, 60 years after Vanderbilt’s first kidney transplant, more than 7,000 kidney transplants had been performed at the Medical Center. During the 2024 calendar year, a record 391 kidney transplants were performed at VUMC, boosting the ranking of its kidney transplant program to fourth in the country.

“Dr. Richie was an early pioneer in transplantation who helped bring this lifesaving procedure to residents of Tennessee,” said Seth Karp, MD, the H. William Scott Jr. Professor of Surgery and chair of the Section of Surgical Sciences. “He was a critical figure in the growth of the Vanderbilt Transplant Center. He will be dearly missed.”

“He was a master surgeon, both in his knowledge and skills,” added Michael Holzman, MD, MPH, who holds the Lester and Sara Jayne Williams Chair in Academic Surgery at Vanderbilt.  “He was a technical maestro in the operating room, and an incredible teacher. His patients adored him. His attentiveness, compassion, and care were something we all should strive to achieve.”

Dr. Richie also served as chief of surgical services at the Nashville VA Hospital from 1972 to 1977 and was chief of the transplant section at the VA for decades. His ongoing clinical research received international recognition, especially for the work he and colleagues performed on the development of lymphocyte depletion by thoracic duct drainage as a method to induce immune tolerance.

Apart from his pioneering work in transplantation, in the early 1970s Dr. Richie worked to establish Nashville’s first EMT training program and to develop and implement a medical communications system to link emergency services in Nashville. For this, he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Tennessee Medical Association, and he was appointed an adviser to the Governor.

Dr. Richie was promoted to emeritus status in 2001 but remained active and interested in the continuing success of the kidney transplantation program at Vanderbilt and the growth of the transplant center generally. He was often, and correctly, regarded as a major pioneer in the field whenever the transplant program at Vanderbilt was mentioned.

“Bob was a soft-spoken, gentle man and gentleman,” Helderman said. “He was a consummate surgeon and a great teacher in the OR. We will miss one of Vanderbilt’s giants.”

Dr. Richie is survived by his wife, Mary Fern Richie, PhD, APRN-BC, a daughter, Mayme Florence Richie-Gillespie, MD, two sons, Robert Richie Jr., and William Richie, and several grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned for Saturday, Jan. 25, at 2 p.m. in the sanctuary of West End United Methodist Church, 2200 West End Ave. in Nashville. Visitation in the church’s Reed Hall will precede the service, beginning at noon.