Internist, nephrologist, educator, leader helped shape the school in its early years
Contact: Steven Lee, (210) 450-3823, lees22@uthscsa.edu
SAN ANTONIO, May 28, 2026 – Marvin Forland, MD, MACP, a founding faculty member of the School of Medicine at what was then The University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio – now the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio – died Tuesday, May 26, in hospice care at the age of 93.
An internist, nephrologist, educator, mentor and servant leader, Forland helped shape the school from its earliest years as a community devoted to forming humane and morally serious healers.
He was a native of northern New Jersey and a lifelong student of medicine. After military service in the Renal Branch of the Army’s Surgical Research Unit at Brooke Army Medical Center and faculty service at the University of Chicago School of Medicine, Forland came to San Antonio in 1968 to help build the newly opening medical school.
At UT Health San Antonio, Forland became one of the institution’s formative figures. As chief of the Division of Renal Diseases, he helped develop the curriculum and establish hemodialysis, renal biopsy and renal transplantation programs. He authored or co-authored more than 80 papers and book chapters, edited the Concise Textbook of Nephrology, and later served as residency program director, deputy chair for clinical activities and associate dean for clinical affairs.
Forland’s leadership extended beyond San Antonio. A Fellow and later Master of the American College of Physicians, he served as Governor for South Texas and later as president of the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine. His honors included the Kathryn Dial Murray Gift of Life Award, the ACP-ASIM Laureate Award, the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey Humanism in Medicine Award and the Medical School Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Award.
Upon his retirement in 1999, Forland was named Professor Emeritus of Medicine. That year, a medical student scholarship was established in his honor, and a former patient endowed the Marvin Forland, M.D., Distinguished Professorship in Medical Humanities and Ethics.
Yet Forland’s legacy cannot be measured only by offices held, programs built, or awards received. His deepest vision was that a medical school should train not only technically skilled physicians, but morally motivated healers. He helped bring the passion and institutional will needed to establish what became the Charles E. Cheever, Jr. Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics. His influence was like a gravitational force, drawing others who believed medicine must remain attentive to suffering, neglect, injustice, and the full humanity of patients and communities.
Forland was a remarkable mentor because he took people seriously. He opened doors, handed them books, sent them articles, asked better questions and helped them imagine the kind of physician, teacher or person they might become. A true bibliophile and lifelong reader, he clipped articles from newspapers and journals and sent them to colleagues, students and mentees as offerings. Near the end of his life, he donated his robust and diverse collection of books to colleagues and mentees – a final act of teaching and an invitation into a larger conversation.
Forland’s trademark was sincere respect. He had a deep appreciation for earnestness, altruism and kindness, and a way of bringing those qualities out in others. He also had a strong sense of humor and enjoyed a tasteful joke. His seriousness was never grim. He loved to break bread with people and to host them, welcoming the friend and the stranger and treating hospitality as another form of respect.
Forland served the broader San Antonio community with the same spirit. He gave his time and leadership to organizations including Hospice San Antonio, the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, the San Antonio Area Foundation, the University Health System Development Foundation, the Golden Manor Jewish Home for the Aged and the Jewish Federation of San Antonio’s Task Force on Aging. These commitments reflected the same pattern that marked his professional life: He built institutions, strengthened communities and used leadership as a form of service.
His Jewish faith and moral imagination shaped his way of being in the world. He understood the power of stories to enlarge the conscience and the importance of responsibility in the face of another person’s need. His life called to mind Martin Buber’s vision of genuine encounter, the movement from seeing another person as an object to meeting another person as a “Thou.” The words from the prophet Micah, associated with Buber’s own gravestone, offer a fitting frame for Forland’s life: “Walk humbly with your God.”
Forland’s life was a lesson in what medicine can be when knowledge is joined to humility, skill to conscience, and leadership to service. He helped build a medical school, but more importantly, he helped shape the moral imagination of those who passed through it.
He is survived by Ellinor, his wife of 60 years, his son Aaron of San Antonio, his daughter Emily, her husband Mark, and his grandson, Theo, of Brooklyn. He is preceded in death by his mother and father, Aaron and Fay Forland, and his sister and brother-in-law, Marlene and Harold Richman. A funeral will be held at Temple Beth-El on Friday, May 29, at 11 a.m. Donations may be made to the Charles E. Cheever, Jr. Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics, Child Advocates San Antonio (CASA) and the San Antonio Area Foundation.
UT Health San Antonio is the academic health center of The University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio), offering a comprehensive network of inpatient and outpatient care facilities staffed by medical, dental, nursing and allied health professionals who provide more than 2.5 million patient visits each year. It is the region’s only academic health center and one of the nation’s leading health sciences institutions, supported by the schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions, graduate biomedical sciences and public health that are leading change and advancing health-related fields throughout South Texas and the world. To learn about the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit UTHealthSA.org.
The Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio) is listed among U.S. News & World Report’s best medical schools, among the top 5% of universities globally for clinical medicine research and ranked as the third-highest medical school in Texas for medical research funding by the National Institutes of Health. The Long School of Medicine supports the university’s academic health center, UT Health San Antonio.
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