Richard S. Gross, MD

Before Christmas 1998, Dick came to our home with a present. We began talking about our family histories. For the next two hours, I learned about Dick's fascinating heritage. He related that his great-great-uncle was Gustavus Lincoln Simmons, MD (1832-1910), who came from Boston to Sacramento in 1850 at age 17 to work for his great-grandfather, Henry May. Henry was proprietor of the old Boston Drug Store at 48th and J Streets and had sold patent medicines on Meigs Wharf during the California Gold Rush. Simmons shared a room over a barn with two other boys, Charles Crocker and D. O. Mills.

Dr. Simmons returned to Boston to become the first student from California to graduate from Harvard University School of Medicine. Following graduation, Dr. Simmons practiced medicine in Sacramento for 40 years and was the first county physician. His office was located at 46th and J Streets, which was the site of the organizational meeting to form the Sacramento Society for Medical Improvement (Sacramento-El Dorado Medical Society). It was Dr. Simmons who suggested the name, which remains to this date the corporate name of the medical society. Today, if you walk through Capitol Park, you can see the beautiful Stone Pine trees Dr. Simmons brought back from Italy and planted on the western end of the park. He married Celia Crocker. Their sons were Dr. Gustavus Simmons and Sam L. Simmons; the latter practiced medicine in Sacramento. They were cousins of Dick's mother.

Dick matriculated at Stanford, but with the onset of World War II in 1942, he enlisted in the V12 U. S. Navy Reserve in 1943 and was at UCLA for 9 months. He returned to Stanford for his AB Degree in 1946 and MD in 1949. His surgical training was at Stanford Hospitals and San Francisco General Hospital, where he was the chief resident of general and thoracic surgery from 1955-56

Dick was a teaching instructor in surgery that year and an assistant clinical professor of surgery at U C Davis School of Medicine from the time the school opened 27 years ago. He published papers on Non-penetrating Wounds of the Abdomen, 1957, and on Necrotizing Colitis, 1969, in the American Journal of Surgery.

He began his general surgery practice in Sacramento in 1956. He followed in the footsteps of his great-great-uncle by joining the Medical Society, serving two terms on the Board of Directors (1973-1976) and as Secretary in 1975. He was certified by the American Board of Surgery in 1958, and was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

He was also President of the Sacramento Surgical Society in 1965; and chief of surgery at Mercy Hospital in 1965-66. He served on committees organizing the medical staffs of Mercy and Sutter Hospitals; on Medical Society committees; the Sacramento Health Council (1973-1976); and the Golden Empire Health Planning Council (1976-1979). He was also a member of the CMA and the AMA.

Dick was a very practical surgeon who worked efficiently and quickly with great accuracy. Surgeons competed for any of his extra time to engage him as an operating assistant, to improve the quality of their work on complex cases and to shorten the time of their procedures.

He will be remembered as a man of integrity and strong character, who was thoroughly honest. He possessed the highest moral and ethical standards that were never compromised. His love of family, friends and his patients was constant and true.

By Frank J. Boutin, Sr., MD