Honoring the legacy of William L. Henrich, MD, MACP

“It is our deep abiding respect for the precious gifts of life and health and our devotion to making—to the extent we can—those essentials available to every single person we have the privilege to touch. That is our mission moving forward. It’s the underlying reason why we work so hard.” – William L. Henrich, MD, MACP
Our beloved William L. Henrich, MD, MACP, served as president of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio from 2009 to 2024. In his 15 years as president, he transformed UT Health San Antonio into a top-ranked academic health center.

We invite you to share your memories of Dr. Henrich and what he meant to you. 

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Lance D Dworkin MD from Providence, RI
Bill was a dear friend, a long term colleague, and a valued and trusted mentor. I first met Bill when he was Chair of Medicine at University of Toledo. He and Christopher Cooper had submitted a grant application for a study to determine the best treatment for renal vascular disease. At about the same time and without knowledge of each other, Tim Murphy and I had also applied for a similar study. The leadership at NHLBI contacted us and said they would like one application and suggested we work together. We four met at NIH in Bethesda never having spoken before. It was a strange gathering, each pair trying to figure out what the other pair knew without revealing anything. But from that first uncomfortable meeting the CORAL trial grew, a 15 year project culminating in a leading publication in the New England Journal and a result that transformed the care of patients with renal vascular disease. That experience also cemented a lifelong friendship among the four of us, for which I will always be grateful. Beyond whatever we accomplished working together professionally, Bill also became someone I would consult about a range of issues, personal and professional. At least for me, there have only been a handful of people who I have met who I felt would give me their intelligent, insightful, thoughtful, sensitive, and scrupulously honest opinion about complex questions, and always with my best interests at heart. Bill was one of those few people, and it's ironic that years later I called him when I was considering accepting the Chair of Medicine position at UT, a position he had occupied years earlier. For the next seven year, I then walked by his smiling, almost life-size picture every day, as the former chair, on the wall outside our office, reminding me what inspired leadership can mean to an institution. I will miss talking to Bill. He was always upbeat and fun, even during the most trying times. My deepest sympathy for Mary and the family. I will always be grateful for his genuine warmth, affection, and kindness to me.
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