Dr. Victoria Sy Lim
LIM, NG, DUNHAM, EARLE, STARBIRD
Posted By: Sarah Fletcher (email)
Date: 3/3/2025 at 07:33:18
Dr. Victoria Sy Lim, Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine at the University of Iowa died on February 21, 2025 at home in Iowa City. She integrated the roles of devoted wife, dedicated mother, and academic physician, all in one person.
Dr. Victoria Lim was born in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China and grew up in the Philippines. She was the eldest of six children. She graduated MD, cum laude, from Far Eastern University in Manila and was well-known for obtaining the highest score that year on the Philippine Medical Board Examination. Victoria completed her residency training in Internal Medicine at the Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and subsequently went through fellowship training in the specialty of Nephrology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She was a faculty member at the University of Chicago from 1969 to 1982, during which time she was also Director of Renal Dialysis at the Michael Reese Hospital.
Victoria was Professor of Internal Medicine (nephrology) at the University of Iowa from 1982 until her retirement in 2007. Victoria carried out clinical research on endocrine dysfunction in patients with kidney failure. She participated in the early clinical trials demonstrating that the recombinant hormone erythropoietin can be an effective treatment for anemia in renal failure patients and published numerous scientific papers in prestigious journals including the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Annals of Internal Medicine, and American Journal of Physiology. She was invited to lecture in international meetings including those in Greece, Israel, Sweden and Hong Kong, and was the past President of the Chinese American Society of Nephrology. She recently published a memoir, titled Odyssey Across the Pacific: From China to the Philippines to the US, in which she chronicled her unique experience and struggle in American academia.
Victoria is survived by her brothers, John Sy Ng (Betty Ng) and Alexander Sy (Susan Sy), her husband of 64 years, Ramon Lim, MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Neurology at the University of Iowa, and her three children and nine grandchildren.
Her eldest child, Jennifer Lim-Dunham (Daniel Dunham), AB, cum laude (Harvard), MD (U of Chicago), is Professor of Radiology at Loyola University in Chicago. Her son, Wendell, (Karen Earle) AB, summa cum laude (Harvard), PhD (MIT), is Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Her daughter, Caroline Starbird, AB with Honors (Stanford), JD (Columbia), works as a product designer with digital satellite-based precision technology.
Victoria’s nine grandchildren, ranging from age 14 to 32, provided her with immense happiness and joy. They are: Theresa Dunham, Caitlin Dunham, Conor Dunham, Castine Starbird, Renata Starbird, Katrina Starbird, Emilia Lim, Nadia Lim, and Jasper Lim. Among them are graduates from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, and Williams College. They include an Assistant Professor of Allergy at University Chicago, a corporate lawyer, a mental health counselor, a surgical sterilization specialist, a medical student at Columbia, an environmental policy consultant, a PhD candidate at MIT, a college student at Wesleyan, and a high school student at University High in San Francisco.
The remains will be cremated in a private service and a formal memorial will be held in Iowa City at a future date. Memorial gifts can be made to the Ramon and Victoria Lim Medical Science Lectureship Fund at the University of Iowa Foundation (http://givetoiowa.org/lim).
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