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Volume 21, Number 3 • July 2008		 Arrow Bullet Return to Table of Contents
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Perry Edward Gross, MD: a conversation with the editor

Perry Edward Gross, MD, and William Clifford Roberts, MD

Perry Edward Gross (Figure 1) was born and raised in Jeannette, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pittsburgh in 1943 and 1944 before being drafted into the army. While in the army, Dr. Gross served in Japan the year after World War II ended. Thereafter, he returned to his studies for a year at the University of Pittsburgh before entering the Chicago Medical School in 1947. During his college years he played on the tennis team, sang in the Heinz Chapel Choir, and worked on the staff of the newspaper (The Pitt News) and the yearbook (The Owl). He was a member of the honorary biological science fraternity, Nu Sigma Sigma, and the honorary activities fraternity, the Druids. Dr. Gross did his internship at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.

Late in 1952 he came to Dallas, Texas, to start a family practice. During his 55 years of practice, Dr. Gross became a beloved physician. He joined the staffs of Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) and St. Paul Hospital at that time and became St. Paul’s chief of general practice in 1954. He retained that post through 1978. He also held significant roles at BUMC, where he was chief of the Department of Family Practice from 1974 through 2007 and at one time or another served on several medical committees. In addition, he was chairman of the medical board. In 2005, the Perry E. Gross, MD, Chair of Family Medicine was established at BUMC. For the past 10 years, Dr. Gross was a clinical professor in the Department of Family Practice at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas, and the Perry E. Gross, MD, Distinguished Chair of Family Practice was established there in 1998. Mr. and Mrs. Milledge A. Hart III honored Dr. Gross by establishing both of these endowed chairs. Throughout his career in Dallas, Dr. Gross has been active in the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, serving on several committees as well as presiding as president of the Dallas Academy of Family Physicians.

Dr. Gross has always been a very active member of the Dallas community. He has presented a series of lectures at Southern Methodist University on such topics as suicide, human sexuality, crisis intervention, biomedical ethics, contraception, dying, and divorce. He has also been active in several Jewish organizations in the city, including Jewish Family Service, Jewish Welfare Federation, Temple Emanu-El, Planned Parenthood, and the Suicide and Crisis Center. He chaired the Health Advisory Council and the Health Benefit Subcommittee of the Dallas Independent School District, served on the advisory board of VITAS Hospice, and served as president and held other offices of Phi Delta Epsilon International Medical Fraternity.

He and his lovely wife, Harriet Florence Bernstein, are the proud parents of three living offspring and five grandchildren. It was an honor to talk to this wonderful man.