LEE--Dr. Hyung Mo "H.M.," Dr. Hyung Mo "H.M." Lee, 86, died March 24, 2013, in Richmond, VA. Recognized internationally as a pioneer in organ transplantation, Professor and former Chair of the Division of Vascular and Transplant Surgery at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, and past president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. Memorial service at 11am, Saturday, April 6, St. Stephen's Church, Richmond, VA. Memorial donations may be made to MCV Foundation, PO Box 980234 Richmond, VA 23298-0324, for the Dr. H.M. Lee Memorial Fund.
Transplant surgeon Dr. Hyung Mo Lee, who from 1973 to 1994 led the organ transplant program at the Medical College of Virginia, was known for his high ethical standards, surgical skill and compassion.
“I never saw Dr. Lee get angry,” said Dr. Anne King, a professor of medicine and surgery at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. The medical school was known as the Medical College of Virginia during Dr. Lee’s tenure.
“You could see, after you got to know him a little bit, that he would get impatient perhaps with some of his less skilled assistants,” said King, also medical director of the kidney transplant program at VCU.
“He would suggest, very kindly, that you go have lunch. If you said you’d already had lunch, he would say, ‘No, that’s OK, you go have lunch,’ ” King said.
Dr. Lee, 86, of Henrico County, died March 24 after a long illness. Family members said he had suffered strokes in recent years.
Friends and colleagues remembered him as a pioneering surgeon who, with his mentor, the late Dr. David M. Hume, helped propel the organ transplant program at MCV to national prominence. When Hume died in a plane crash in 1973, Dr. Lee took over as transplant program chairman.
Dr. Lee also was remembered as a national leader in developing organ transplant policy, serving from 1984-85 as president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and during that tenure pushing for the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act, which established a system for organ allocation and distribution.
“He was a remarkable master surgeon, educator, incredibly ethical man,” said Dr. Marc Posner, a professor and chairman of the Division of Transplantation Surgery at VCU.
“He was there at the dawning of transplants in this country. He was clearly an icon in American surgery from the point of view of vascular and transplant surgery,” said Posner, also director of the Hume-Lee Transplant Center at VCU.
Dr. Lee served from 1979-80 as president of the Southeastern Organ Procurement Foundation, the organization that gave rise to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
Dr. Lee, born in 1926 in Tanchon, Korea, came to the United States after earning a medical degree at the Seoul National University Medical School in 1949, just before the start of the Korean War. He said in an interview years later that there were no jobs and the medical system had broken down in Korea. A friend encouraged him to relocate to the U.S.
He did so in 1953, said his wife, Dr. Kyung Ok Lee, a retired pediatrician.
“At that time, it was so difficult to travel around. Even from Korea, you could not get in or get out,” she said. “We met at MCV. I was in pediatrics. He was in surgery training.”
Dr. Lee’s son, Dr. Bennett Lee, said his father influenced his own choice of medicine as a career.
“My grandfather was a physician as well, so it’s one of those family traditions, I guess,” said Bennett Lee, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Internal Medicine at VCU.
When Dr. Lee retired from VCU in 1997, he wasn’t idle for long. In 1998, at age 72, he enrolled in law school at the University of Richmond, the oldest of 472 students there at the time.
In addition to his wife and son, Dr. Lee’s survivors include a daughter, Margaret Mikyung Lee, an attorney in Washington.
The family will hold a private service today. A public memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. April 6 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 6000 Grove Ave.