Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D, will deliver the 10th Biennial Ralph H. and Ruth F. Gross Lecture on Thursday at 4 p.m. on a subject - "Medical Knowledge in the IT Era" - befitting the couple the lecture series honors.
The Dean will discuss how electronic information instantly available at the bedside will enhance patient care in the future. And he'll speak in the lobby of the Louis Calder Memorial Library, a place Ralph Gross, a Broward County poultry farmer whose scholarly quest turned misfortune into success, often visited to explore the connection between nutrition and health.
All are welcome to attend, but RSVPs are requested for the event commemorating the pursuit of knowledge.
As the story goes, Ralph and Ruth Gross moved to South Florida after World War II and started a poultry farm on what is now Broward Boulevard. The business had an inauspicious start: Of the first 100 chicks born, 92 died.
But instead of focusing on the chicks that died, Ralph Gross concentrated on the survivors, concluding their feed made a difference. Determined to learn more, Mr. Gross frequently visited the library, spending hours reading literature on nutrition and health, making photocopies, requesting material from other libraries and consulting with faculty.
"Mr. Gross' concerns about health issues were multifaceted but focused in the area of nutrition,'' Bernard Fogel, M.D., dean of the medical school from 1982 to 1995 remembered when he gave the third Gross lecture in 1995. "He was a true scholar and depended on medical libraries to do his own research.''
In the mid-1980s, after Mr. Gross' death, his wife honored his memory and his scholarly pursuit of medical knowledge by seeding a $1 million library endowment for the purchase of medical books and journals.
"It was really quite a gift,'' said Suzetta Burrows, the library's director of operations. "We may be the only medical school library in the nation with a million-dollar endowment for the purchase of books.''
In turn, Professor Emeritus Henry L. Lemkau, Jr., the now-retired director and chair of the medical library and biomedical communications, set out to honor Mrs. Gross' appreciation for the value of information by establishing the lecture series in 1990. Since then, a person of exceptional accomplishment has been tapped every other year to speak on a topic of his or her choosing.
Emanuel M. Papper, M.D., Ph.D., vice president for medical affairs and dean of the Miller School of Medicine from 1969 - 1981, delivered the first lecture in 1991; Mary Moore, Ph.D., now professor and chair of the medical library and biomedical communications, delivered the last one in 2007.
The medical library committee, a standing committee of the Faculty Council, suggested the Dean as this year's speaker.
Mrs. Gross passed away in 1998, but both her daughters are expected to attend Thursday's address. For more information on the series or the Gross Endowment, visit http://calder.med.miami.edu/gross/.
To attend the Dean's lecture, please RSVP to Kim Loper at 305-343-6424 or kloper@med.miami.edu.
