Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Dr. Dane McBride with the Asthma & Allergy Center examines patient Doris Stark, who lives in Lexington and has been coming to the center since June 6, 1973. She was originally a patient of Dr. Alexander McCausland.

Roger Bohon, the manager of the Asthma & Allergy Center, said that they have treated four generations of some families.

To colleagues of Dr. Alexander McCausland, his name will always be linked with the medical field he worked in for nearly seven decades.

When McCausland stopped practicing medicine in 2005, he was 92 and believed to be the oldest practicing allergist in the country.

When he died March 24, he left money in a trust to the University of Virginia School of Medicine to ensure future generations of allergists by funding a fellowship at the school's division of allergy and immunology.

With the number of allergist doctors not keeping pace with the increasing incidence rate of allergies and asthmas, McCausland's contribution for the fellowship goes directly toward addressing a significant problem facing the specialty.

"The country is heading towards a shortage of allergists," said Dr. Saju Eapen, an allergist who joined McCausland's Roanoke practice, Asthma & Allergy Center, in 2001.

"The number [of new allergists] we have is less than the number dying. And if you think about the increasing incidence of allergies, you see we have less physicians trained to treat these patients."

There are currently about 400 fellows-in-training enrolled in two-year training programs for allergy and immunology, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Funding for those fellowships, however, is scarce, said Dr. Dennis Ledford, who sits on the board of directors for the academy.

"It's not unique only to this specialty," said Ledford, who is also a professor of medicine at the University of South Florida and a physician at the James A. Haley Veterans Medical Center in Tampa, Fla.

"There is a predicted shortage of physicians across the country."

While specializing is attractive to many physicians, they are limited by the number of residency spots because each spot requires funding for the faculty and the fellow.

In particular, allergist fellowships do not receive the same federal tax dollars through Medicare as some other specialty fellowships because allergists are less likely to be connected to hospitals, Ledford said.

"The whole way medical education is funded is based on Medicare money paid to teaching hospitals," he said. "Allergy [services] aren't typically hospital-based, so there isn't a way to fund that type of fellowship easily."

McCausland wanted to make sure one allergy training position was guaranteed.

Dr. Scott Commins was named the first McCausland fellow at the Asthma and Allergy Society of Virginia annual meeting held last week.

Probate records do not indicate how much McCausland left to fund the fellowship. A spokesman for the university said he did not know the amount of money given for the fellowship, but called the contribution "a major financial support."

"He really championed for the certification of allergy specialists," said Dr. Luis Matos, who joined McCausland's practice in 1997.

In the same vein, McCausland's partners said that they felt a need to continue to prioritize education, use of technological advancements and cutting edge medicine.

"He was a great example of keeping up with new developments in medicine," said Dr. Dane McBride, who joined the practice more than two decades ago. "As old as he was, he always kept up and was always earning continuing education credits."

On Thursday, friends, colleagues and community members gathered at Asthma & Allergy Center on Franklin Road to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the practice McCausland founded.

They also celebrated the man who built the center from a solo practice to a practice with three doctors and two locations seeing more than 10,000 patients.

Roger Bohon, who manages the practice, said some families have four generations being treated in the practice.

Doris Stark first visited McCausland on July 6, 1973, for treatment of her allergies and said his dedication to the field was apparent in how he treated her as a patient.

"Most every time I went in to visit with him he even talked about new things going on in medicine," Stark said. "Occasionally I would even get a handwritten note from Dr. McCausland. One time I had a pulmonary, a lung, problem.

"He wrote me a note about a month after my visit inquiring about my health. Most doctors don't have the time to do that. They follow up with a phone call, or have a nurse call, but he wrote me a note.

"It was really special."