Dr. Robert Maronde, academic cocreated an artificial kidney

LOS ANGELES - Dr. Robert F. Maronde, a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California School of Medicine whose accomplishments included cocreating an artificial kidney in the late 1940s and developing an early computerized prescription drug system in the 1960s, has died. He was 88.

Dr. Maronde died of natural causes Aug. 16 at his home in Monterey Park in the Los Angeles area, said his son, Bob.

Dr. Maronde began his more than 50-year academic career at the USC School of Medicine in 1948 and launched his private practice in internal medicine two years later.

In 1949, in collaboration with Dr. Helen Martin, he implemented a hemodialysis program for acute renal failure at what is now Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

They were at the forefront of medical innovation, creating an artificial kidney that used a stainless-steel beer keg as the reservoir.

In 1955, Dr. Maronde and two other physicians started the Hypertension Clinic at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

And in the late 1960s, he developed one of the first - if not the first - computerized prescription drug systems, which was launched in the outpatient pharmacy at LA County-USC Medical Center.

"Now, of course, all pharmacists use the computer, but in those days nobody did, at least in this area," said Dr. Peter Lee, one of Dr. Maronde's colleagues in developing the system. "Here's a doctor who got well enough acquainted with the computer in those days and really led the way."

At USC in the late 1960s, Dr. Maronde helped develop an interdisciplinary program in which pharmacy graduates are trained in a hospital setting; it was one of the first in the specialty of clinical pharmacy.

And in collaboration with Lee in 1970, Dr. Maronde developed "Med Ocho," a community-based, hospital care program on the eighth floor of County-USC Medical Center designed to serve the Hispanic community.

"He was a truly important person, although he never pushed himself to the front, never cared about publicity," Lee said. "As a result, a lot of people, except in his field of hypertension and clinical pharmacology, really don't know what he has done."

The son of a physician father, Robert F. Maronde was born in Monterey Park on Jan. 13, 1920. He graduated from South Pasadena High School in 1937 and received his bachelor's degree from USC in 1941 and his medical degree from the USC School of Medicine in 1944.

He was a ship's doctor while on active duty in the Naval Reserve in 1946-47.

In addition to his son Bob, he leaves his wife, Yolanda; three other children, Donna Varnau, James, and Craig; six grandchildren; and a great-grandson.