Family, friends and colleagues are respectfully invited to attend memorial services for President William L. Henrich, MD, MACP.
A public visitation will be held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 24, 2024, at Porter Loring Mortuary, located at 1101 McCullough Avenue, San Antonio.
A public memorial service will be held on Monday, March 25, 2024, at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church located at 4201 DeZavala Road, San Antonio. There will be a Rosary at 11 a.m., followed by a Funeral Mass at 11:30 a.m. You may also watch the livestreaming of the Rosary, Mass and Celebration of Life.
The university is also planning a special remembrance celebration in the weeks ahead with more detail coming out in the near future. UT Health San Antonio invites its faculty, staff, students and community friends to contribute their memories of President Henrich on a special university Tribute Site and reflect on his impact both personally and professionally.
To honor the lifelong and dedicated public service of President William Henrich, MD, MACP, university leadership requested permission to lower both the U.S. flag and the State of Texas flag located on the university’s campus to half-staff, which will occur Thursday, March 21 to sunset on Monday, March 25, 2024.
William L. Henrich, MD, MACP, Obituary
Dr. William Lloyd Henrich, who we all knew as Bill, passed away on Thursday, March 14, 2024, as a result of complications from a stem cell transplant. He was a visionary leader and team-builder, a faithful and thoughtful friend, and a wonderful grandfather, father and husband. Bill dedicated his life to serving the public good through his personal mission of healing and care, discovery, education and public service.
Born in Detroit, Michigan on August 7, 1946, to Margaret Willam and Thomas Lloyd Henrich, Bill grew up in a home that fostered his love for the arts. Margaret, a former mezzo-soprano in the Chicago Lyric Opera, was the music teacher and music director at their Methodist church. Thomas held various jobs for Disney and Paramount Pictures. When Bill was five, his parents moved him, his older brother Martin and younger brother Thomas to Richardson, Texas.
Bill was a naturally curious person, and destined to become a researcher, but it was in a high-level math class that he made the most important discovery of his life: Mary Lorene Dennis, who he would court through his college years at Columbia University in New York City. Bill graduated with a degree in English and a minor in art history, but his career goal was always medicine. He and Mary were engaged in the spring of 1968 and began their journey together in Houston, where Bill earned a medical degree at the Baylor College of Medicine.
After medical school, the young couple moved to Portland, Oregon for Bill’s internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Oregon, then proceeded to Denver for his fellowship in nephrology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine with his mentor Dr. Robert Schrier. In 1978, he and Mary returned to Dallas, where he moved up the ranks as a professor of internal medicine at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, and as a clinician at the V.A. Medical Center. It was in Dallas that Bill and Mary raised their two children, John Martin, born in 1974, and Emily Katherine, in 1976.
In March of 1995, Bill and Mary moved to Toledo, Ohio where he accepted an appointment as the Chair of Medicine at the Medical College of Ohio. They moved to Baltimore in 1999 when Bill was named Chair of Medicine at the University of Maryland. In 2006, they landed in San Antonio following Bill’s appointment as Dean of The University of Texas San Antonio School of Medicine. Four years later, he was named President of the UT San Antonio Health Science Center, succeeding his close friend, Francisco Cigarroa.
An elected member of several prominent medical societies, Bill was particularly honored to serve as President of the American Society of Nephrology. He believed that nephrologists had the unique capacity to lead because nephrologists face dire problems with their patients, but also achieve miraculous recoveries. Bill was passionate about mentoring students, residents and young physicians and was most proud to have received teaching accolades from every institution in which he served.
Bill penned over 300 original articles, many textbook chapters and was one of the first writers for the UpToDate website in collaboration with his good friend, Bud Rose. He was the founding editor of the popular dialysis textbook, Henrich’s Principles and Practice of Dialysis.
While prolific as an author, the note he wrote most often was to Mary: “Gone for a Run. Love, Bill.” He ran almost every day of his adult life. Or biked. Or swam. He was dedicated to family and a proud parent and grandparent who was quick to share a recent picture or a funny story—or recall yet another debacle befalling his favorite pro teams (the Spurs, the Cowboys and the Texas Rangers, of course).
Throughout his career, Bill led with his heart and insisted on treating everyone with dignity. He believed in thinking big, followed by bold action. He loved his colleagues in San Antonio and believed they had the limitless potential to solve the hardest problems in the world. In his last message to the campus, he urged everyone forward, saying, “So many people are depending on us, counting on us to be successful in our missions. Our noble work helps these families, educates these young professionals and delivers research advances that benefit everyone, everywhere in the world. I have confidence in you to make the lofty goals established for our institution a reality.”
Bill is preceded in death by his parents and his brothers, Thomas and Martin. He leaves behind Mary, his wife of 54 years, as well as John and his wife, Melissa; Emily and her husband, Keith Meister, and grandchildren Lucy, Gabriel and Charles Henrich, and Lily and Margaret Meister; his brother-in-law David Noblet and his family; his sisters-in-law Nancy Winn, Ann Dennis, Rose Trott, Lucy Voyik, Helen Dennis and their families.
If you wish to honor Bill’s memory, please consider a gift to the William L. Henrich, MD, MACP Memorial Endowed Scholarship of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio: https://makelivesbetter.uthscsa.edu/henrichmemorial.