CHCS Perspectives Summer/Fall 2013

PERSPECTIVES • SUMMER-FALL 2013 – Page 34 T he Physician Assistant Department faculty members respectfully acknowledge the contributions of Robert C. Grosz, Ed.D., as a professor of physician assistant studies for over 16 years and 53 years in higher education. Dr. Grosz originally had aspirations to become a professional basketball player. After spending three years in professional basketball during its early days in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with a couple of years in the U.S. Air Force in Korea sandwiched in, a change in mind and body brought him into the world of television and industrial show-talent scouting. His career in television and talent scouting lasted for about seven years before his interest in the med- ical field became the goal of choice. During his studies in the science-oriented premed program in college, he was given an opportunity to train as a substance-abuse counselor in the early 1960s. In addition, Dr. Grosz was fortunate enough to take part in a dual National Science Foundation-Na- tional Institutes of Health research grant at Adel- phi University in New York, where his research focused on developing a mitotic synchronization laboratory technique in preparation for treating a microbe with a known mitotic inhibitor in the hope of radio-tagging the inhibition specificity. This re- search eventually became his master’s thesis. The time period of 1960 through 1965 was also the interval when, while studying and researching, Dr. Grosz was given an opportunity to teach in the Adelphi University Department of Graduate Biol- ogy, which would prove to be the determining event in his career. He also met his wife Barbara at this time while doing fecal-slide preparations in para- sitology. At the time, Barbara was working on a Na- tional Science Foundation genetics project. Life progressed nicely for Dr. Grosz during this period as he finished his master’s degree in Physiology, got married, and decided to backtrack from medical school and accept a teaching position. In 1966, Dr. Grosz relocated to Miami, Florida, where he would continue teaching and help design and establish a new medical center campus for Miami Dade Community College (MDCC). With that finished, he was sent on loan to Switzerland, where he taught anatomy and physiology and es- tablished a drug-counseling program. Upon returning to Florida, Dr. Grosz • resumed teaching • completed a doctorate in psychology—thesis was entitled “Profiling the Singled, Parent Student: A Needs Assessment,” which helped establish funding for a department at MDCC devoted to counseling the parent-student • was invited to join a large private psychology practice • received a Master Teacher award from the Medical Center Faculty Senate in 1990 During these years, Dr. Grosz has been devoting time to coaching or teaching individual skills in or- ganized basketball at the college and/or high school level, including the Philippine Olympic team (1952) and the Swiss national team. He has been instrumental in the development of the undergrad- uate athletic training program here at NSU and has conducted athletic clinics in the Broward County School District to improve the health of athletes. Dr. Grosz continues to be an adjunct professor in both the Shepard Broad Law Center and in the Graduate School of Psychology and has been a guest on Dateline: Health —NSU’s public service TV program hosted by Fred Lippman, R.Ph., Ed.D, chancellor of NSU’s Health Professions Division. In terms of honors and achievements, he is the recipient of two Golden Apple Awards—one for Teacher of the Year and the other for Mentor of the Year from the Class of 2005. He has published 11 essays for the Internet Journal of Allied Health Sci- ences and Practice and was recently inducted into Pi Alpha, the National Honor Society for Physician Assistants, in recognition of his many years of valu- able service to the profession. Despite all of Dr. Grosz’s accomplishments, his four basic passions have continued to be family, teaching, counseling, and organized athletics. By Kenny McCallum, M.P.H., CHCS Clinical Director FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: Dr. Robert Grosz “...his four basic passions have continued to be family, teaching, counseling, and organized athletics.”