Search Website
In Memoriam: Dr. Robert M. Lindsay
Office of the Dean
With sadness, we share the passing of Dr. Robert M. Lindsay on September 22, 2026.
Bob was a nephrologist and professor in the Department of Medicine at Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry from 1974 to 2019. During his time at Western, he mentored generations of nephrologists in London, Ont., across Canada and around the world.
He was internationally recognized for his work in hemodialysis and research to improve the quality of hemodialysis delivered to patients with end-stage renal disease. His extraordinary contributions to research continue through the Robert Lindsay Chair in Dialysis Research and Innovation at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry.
He also created the London Dialysis Course, which educated nephrologists and trainees across Canada.
Bob was born in 1941 in Inverness, a city on Scotland’s northeast coast. He later moved from the Scottish Highlands to Glasgow, where he studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and graduated with honours in 1965. After training in internal medicine and nephrology in Glasgow, he joined Western, starting a relationship that spanned more than four decades.
In 2006, he received The Kidney Foundation of Canada’s Medal for Research Excellence for his pioneering work in hemodialysis-related research.
Bob became a professor emeritus in 2019, but he never really retired. He devoted much of his later life to developing a wearable dialysis machine intended to give patients greater freedom and comfort and, ultimately, longer and healthier lives.
His commitment to teaching and mentorship earned him the Canadian Society of Nephrology's Clinical Nephrology Teaching Award in 2020.
Outside of medicine, Bob, known as Dr. Bob or Biggz to his family and friends, was a loving father of three children and proud grandfather of seven grandchildren. He loved sports and friendly competition, which continued through squash at the London Squash Racquets Club and golf at the London Hunt and Country Club.
He will be remembered for the lasting influence he had on those around him, his love of storytelling, and the way he challenged convention, encouraged colleagues to think differently, and inspired them to keep asking how they could do better for patients.
Read the obituary online via Donohue Funeral Home.