Byron H. McLaughlin was a surgeon who became one of the original doctors to work at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale when it opened in 1954.

He also volunteered as the team doctor for the former Robbinsdale High School's sports teams and was a founding member of Valley Community Presbyterian Church in Golden Valley in 1951.

McLaughlin, 93, died of pneumonia on Sept. 11 in Green Valley, Ariz.

He was one of a handful of doctors to start at North Memorial after Victory Hospital was reorganized as a nonprofit hospital in 1954. North received national accreditation a few years later. He worked most of his career at North, which has grown from 30 beds to 518 today.

"Dr. McLaughlin was one of the pioneer physicians at North Memorial," said Scott Anderson, a retired North chief executive. "He was a very capable surgeon, a very compassionate physician and was a chief of surgery." McLaughlin also was a founder of the Crystal Clinic, he said.

McLaughlin was born in Everett, Wash., and attended Duke University in Durham, N.C., on a tennis scholarship. He earned his medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 1943 before serving as a U.S. Army doctor in the Pacific Theater during World War II. After the war, he studied surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, later moving to Minneapolis to start a family practice. He retired in 1978.

"He was always very wrapped up in medicine," said his son, Mike McLaughlin, also a surgeon. He said his dad was usually too busy to come to his school sports events, but inspired him to go into medicine. He enjoyed being the doctor for high school football players and wrestlers as well as for some Golden Gloves boxing events, his son said. McLaughlin said that in his practice he often runs into patients who fondly remember his father.

McLaughlin was a Mason who rode in Zuhrah Shrine's horse unit in parades, including once in the Rose Bowl, his son said.

He loved fishing in Minnesota, Canada and elsewhere and taking the family boating on the St. Croix River, his son said. He also taught ballroom dancing with his wife, Inez, who died in 1982. Later he remarried a woman he met in Baudette, where he had retired, close to great fishing areas, Mike McLaughlin said.

Besides his son, McLaughlin is survived by his wife, Judy, of Green Valley; two daughters, Candice McGraw of Chanhassen and Cheryl Glaessner of Bethesda, Md.; 12 grandchildren and five stepchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Oct. 9 in the Green Valley Mortuary, Green Valley, Ariz.