Retired neurologist and alumnus Dr. Ross Pettit chats with North Dakota Medicine on retirement, giving, and his namesake scholarship for UND medical students.<\/p>\n
The last time I saw Dr. Ross Pettit, he gave me a box full of anatomical models.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, those belonged to my father-in-law,\u201d laughs Ross (BS Med \u201970) over coffee recently, referencing Dr. John Taylor, who in 1960 helped establish North Dakota\u2019s first electron microscopy laboratory within the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS). \u201cThat stuff was in his house after he died. Donna and I were cleaning his place out and thought that UND should have it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giving back, it seems, is just something Ross and DonnaLee Pettit are inclined to do.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why, a few years ago, the pair sought to give back to the SMHS in a more formal way by establishing the Dr. Ross and DonnaLee Pettit Medical Scholarship Endowment.<\/p>\n
Each spring, the fund distributes allocations to one or more medical students with \u201cfinancial need.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both have relatively strong feelings that it\u2019s important to give back,\u201d Ross continues of the latter gift. \u201cFor me, a big part of this is expressing our appreciation to North Dakota for giving us this opportunity. I really wonder how many of my contemporaries would have been able to have a career in medicine if it hadn\u2019t been for this school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Medicine in the family<\/strong><\/p>\n Born in New York, Ross Pettit ended up in Grand Forks when his father, pediatrician Dr. Samuel Pettit, began practicing in North Dakota in the early-1950s. Growing up around a father who made house calls, Ross says that it was never really a question for him about what career path he would follow.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I just assumed that as a college student I was going to go into medicine,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t recall ever having any other aspirations. I liked the sciences, so I applied [to UND] and got in. Although I did take the Air Force officer\u2019s qualification test as a fallback.\u201d<\/p>\n After completing his two years at UND to earn what was then a Bachelor or Science in Medicine degree in 1970, all while DonnaLee worked as a medical librarian at the old Harley E. French Medical Library at UND, Ross transferred to St. Louis University to finish his M.D.<\/p>\n Initially pursuing pediatrics, like his father, Ross says he eventually fell into neurology,<\/p>\n completing a neurology residency\u2014after an internship in pediatrics and a stint in the U.S. Air Force\u2014at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.<\/p>\n Having married DonnaLee in the interim, the pair made their way back to the upper-Midwest in the late 1970s. After practicing for nearly 40 years in Grand Forks and around the region, Ross retired in 2015\u2014the same year as his brother Bill Pettit, who earned his M.D. from UND in 1980.<\/p>\n Awakenings<\/strong><\/p>\n Along the way, the pediatric neurologist saw incredible change both in the healthcare system and neurology as a practice.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [neurology] oral exam when I went through was four hours long, and one full hour of that was dedicated to psychiatry,\u201d Ross explains, still sounding surprised at the number. \u201cTwenty-five percent. Neurologists are still certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, but the one-hour oral exam in psychiatry was dropped for neurologists in the mid-1980s.\u201d<\/p>\n Such a \u201cdivorce\u201d is good, says Ross, in that while there is still overlap between the specialties, the domain knowledge required by providers within each profession and the demand for both types of healthcare is increasing. That is to say, not only are mental health diagnoses on the rise, also increasing is the scholarship on and diagnoses for neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer\u2019s disease and Parkinson\u2019s. According to one report from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, for instance, the number of people diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s in the United States \u201cis expected to double by 2040.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNeurology has become more therapeutic,\u201d Ross suggests, referencing English neurologist Oliver Sacks and his work on the drug levodopa (L-dopa). \u201cPrior to L-dopa there was nothing you could do for some of these patients. Same with epilepsy. But today it\u2019s much different. If I were in neurology today I would consider subspecializing in epilepsy. Neurologists can subspecialize in a number of areas, from multiple sclerosis and neuromuscular disease to movement disorders.\u201d<\/p>\n