In memory of Warren Douglas Davidson ’54, MD’57

Dr. Davidson died on February 9, 2026, surrounded by family and friends after a long battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He was born in 1932 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Max Davidson, a local attorney, and Anne Davidson, housewife.

He attended Rufus King High School, where he graduated first in his class in June of 1950. The following fall, he entered the University of Wisconsin at Madison as a double major in premed and math. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and the Pi Mu Epsilon mathematical association. He received a BS in medical sciences in June of 1954 and an MD in June of 1957, and was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha honorary scholastic medical society. He started his internship at Philadelphia General Hospital, along with three of his Madison classmates, and stayed on for two years as an internal medicine resident and for one year as chief medical resident. He then served a three-year research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania under an NIH research grant until June of 1964. He then accepted a full-time teaching position at the UCLA School of Medicine and was based at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California. For the first five years at that institution, his research was supported by an NIH Career Development award, after which he became a full-time member of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Harbor.

For the next twenty years he was the director of Haemodialysis Services at Harbor, during which time he supervised the start of approximately one thousand new patients on chronic haemodialysis. He retired from full-time faculty duties in October of 1990, but continued part-time teaching. During his tenure at Harbor-UCLA he published many papers in peer-reviewed journals in the fields of gastroenterology, nephrology, endocrinology, hematology, parasitology and dermatology.

On the first day of medical school in 1950, he met Margaret Jane Hoekstra, one of the two women in his class of eighty students. Margaret grew up on her family’s dairy farm near Marshfield, Wisconsin. The two became close friends. After graduation, Margaret accepted a pediatric internship at Yale Medical School and then completed her residency and fellowship training at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In October of 1959 Warren and Margaret were married in Doylestown Pennsylvania. They spent their honeymoon in New York City, where they attended the meetings of the New York Diabetes Association.

In May of 1961, their first son was born, Stuart Michael, followed by Lawrence Spencer in 1964 and Katherine Deborah in 1966.

In his free time, Warren enjoyed kayaking, fishing and photography. His preferred destinations for family vacations included the Southern California deserts, the Sierra, the Cascades, British Columbia and the Canadian Rockies. He built a sailboat in his backyard, and taught his children to sail in LA Harbor. Other travels included Mexico, London, Rome, Florence, Greece, Lapland and Alaska. He had a great love for astronomy, and freely shared his enthusiasm and knowledge with friends and family.He also enjoyed life-long friendships with neighbors Elmer and Lois Perison, and their sons Stephan and Eben, and with Steve and Shirley Blanchard, and their daughters Elisa and Aimee.

Warren and Margaret celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2009. Margaret died the following year. Warren’s surviving family include his three children, his grandchild Margaret Sprado, brother-in-law Peter Hoekstra, cousin Robin Sachs, daughter-in-law Nancy Vayhinger, and Kathy’s long-time partner Gary Vaughn.

He wished to have acknowledged the many years of excellent medical care and friendship provided by Dr. Donald Inodomi, and the friendship of colleagues and students, especially Dr. Sharon Adler, and co-workers in the dialysis unit, including Debbie Ashton, and his research assistant Linda Bassist.

His children would like to thank the many people who helped our father through numerous difficulties over the last two years. Most especially Dr. Steven Sawelson, Gina Chavarria and Jorge Rodriguez.