James W. Haviland (1911 – 2007) was a Seattle doctor and specialist in Internal Medicine, co-founder of the University of Washington School of Medicine and co-founder of the Northwest Kidney Centers.

James Haviland was born in New York and completed medical school and residency training at Johns Hopkins University. From the late 1940s through the 1970s, Dr. Haviland was a leader at the UW School of Medicine, as assistant dean, clinical professor of medicine and an associate dean for clinical affairs, while also maintaining a large private practice in internal medicine. In 1953 he took an active role in the design, construction and funding of University Hospital, now UW Medical Center. Perhaps most significantly, he co-founded the world’s first outpatient kidney dialysis clinic in 1962, at a time when chronic kidney failure was a fatal disease. Now known as Northwest Kidney Centers, it comprises over a dozen regional clinics, operating on a not-for-profit basis, making convenient dialysis and long-term survival possible.

Haviland served as president of the American College of Physicians in 1970-71 and was elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine in 1973. He is a recipient of the 1995 Washington Laureate Award from the Washington Chapter of the American College of Physicians. He was the first president of the Northwest Kidney Centers board of trustees and continued to serve on the board as senior counsel until his death.

Interview conducted by Dr. Werner Samson on July 15, 1985. This interview is part of the Donald Schmechel Oral History Collection. Don Schmechel, who was a member of the Seattle Public Library Foundation board, began this project with Seattle Public Library in 1984, with the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) brought on board as a partner in early 1985. Schmechel himself worked to raise the funding for the project, and volunteered his time to manage the project, and to conduct interviews along with a crew of volunteers. Originally titled the Videotaping Historic Figures (VHF) Program, the project interviewed 91 people, and MOHAI holds the interviews for 32 of these individuals.