Leslie Pyrah was a charismatic figure in academic surgery, and the first professor of urology in the UK. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of haemodialysis in Leeds.
Born in Leeds, he read medicine at Leeds University, gaining a BSc and Masters in Physiology, and graduating MBChB in 1924. He spent his entire professional career in Leeds. He became Surgical Tutor at Leeds University in 1930. The Department of Urology at the Leeds General Infirmary and St James's Hospital was founded in 1950 with Pyrah as Surgeon-in-Charge. He became Honorary Director of the Medical Research Council Unit for the Study of Surgical Metabolism in 1956, and the same year was elected to a personal chair in urological surgery at Leeds University.
His influence was critical for the establishment in Leeds of the first acute dialysis unit in the UK. He sent his registrar Frank Parsons to Boston, USA in 1954 where he learnt to use the Kolff-Brigham drum coil artificial kidney. When Parsons returned to Leeds, Pyrah convinced the governors of Leeds General Infirmary to buy a Kolff-Brigham machine, and the Artificial Kidney Unit under Parsons leadership was opened there in 1956.
Pyrah also gave a paper to the RA in October 1955 on ‘Renal calcification and calculus formation’
Pyrah was on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (1960-68), was president of the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) (1961-63), and also a co-founder in 1949 of the Urological Club of Great Britain. He was appointed CBE in 1963.
