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Dimond, E. Grey (Edmunds Grey) (1918-2013)

 Person

Dates

  • Existence: 1918 - 2013

Biography

Edmunds Grey Dimond (December 8, 1918-November 3, 2013), born in St. Louis, was the only child of Gertrude and Edmunds Grey Dimond, Sr., a chemist with the Eli Lilly Company. He was raised in Winona, Mississippi, until the family moved to Terre Haute, Indiana. From an early age, Dimond aspired to be a physician, and to this end he studied pharmaceutical chemistry at Purdue University until he entered the Indiana School of Medicine in 1941. His interest in cardiology developed while he served as a reader for a cardiologist who had lost his sight. After earning his M.D., Dimond interned at Indiana Medical Center. He then joined the Army and was stationed in the Medical Corps at Tokyo General Hospital after WWII. Upon his return to the United States, he served as a house officer at Indiana University for one year, and then became a clinical fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. It was there that he worked under the tutelage of Dr. Paul Dudley White, forging a deep personal and professional relationship that continued to influence his work throughout his life.

Dimond spent one year as a lecturer at the School of Aviation Medicine in San Antonio, Texas, before joining the teaching staff at the University of Kansas Medical School in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1950. He directed the cardiovascular laboratory at KU, and in 1953 he became Chairman of the Department of Medicine. During his 1956 sabbatical leave, he was a Fulbright professor in the Netherlands and a lecturer in India, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. Even at this early stage of his career, Dimond was recognized for his progressive views on medical education and postgraduate, continuing education for physicians.

In 1960 Dimond joined the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California, as Director of the Institute for Cardiopulmonary Diseases. In addition to his research and administrative responsibilities, he continued to organize and support postgraduate medical education through the Cardiology Course for the Consultant programs. These seminars were held in cooperation with the American College of Cardiology, to which Dimond diligently contributed his time and effort throughout his career. From May 1961 to May 1962 he served as president of the College, and continued to actively participate in the development of ACC's many programs. Most significantly, Dimond aided in the development of the International Circuit Courses and fundraising for the construction of Heart House. In addition, Dimond sat on the editorial board of the American Journal of Cardiology, served as editor of the ACCEL audiotape journal series, and compiled an oral history of prominent cardiologists. In 1970 he received the ACC Gifted Teacher Award.

In 1968 Dimond returned to Kansas City in order to help launch a new medical school at UMKC. The six-year program combined liberal arts humanism with intensive and practical medical education resulting in a student's earning a B.A. and M.D. concurrently. As first Provost of the new medical school, Dimond was involved with the entire University of Missouri system, the Kansas City community at large, and national medical associations and institutions. Granted Emeritus status in 1983, Dimond continued to shape and influence the medical school as a special consultant to the Chancellor of UMKC.

Dimond's activities outside his professional career relate primarily to Sino-American relations. He and his third wife, Mary Clark Dimond, were personal friends of Edgar Snow, a native Kansas Citian and author of several books, including Red Star Over China. In 1971 Dimond, along with Paul Dudley White, was a member of a delegation of cardiologists invited by Chou En Lai to visit the People's Republic of China. They were the first American physicians to enter the country in twenty-five years. It was the first of more than two dozen trips to China Dimond and his wife, would take. Mary Clark Dimond created a fund in honor of Snow after Snow's death in 1972. After Mary's death in 1983, Dimond took over her presidency of the Edgar Snow Memorial Fund, now the Edgar Snow Memorial Foundation. The foundation hosts opportunities to bridge relations between the United States and China, including the Snow Symposium. The foundation is an affiliate constituent organization at UMKC.

In addition to his travels, Dimond was a lecturer for the Chinese Medical Association and a member of the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China. He aided in the publication of the Chinese language edition of JAMA and was also responsible for UMKC's affiliation agreements with Shanghai Second Medical College and Harbin Medical University in China. Dimond published 18 books on the intersection of Chinese and Western medicine, including Essays from an Unfinished Physician: Lessons From People, Patients, and Life (2000) and Inside China Today: A Western View (1984).

Dimond dedicated his modernist house on Hospital Hill to UMKC to be used for university and community events in 1994. The house at 25th and Holmes is named "Diastole."

Prior to his death in 2013, Dimond won the UMKC Chancellor's Medal in 2011 as provost emeritus of health sciences. His legacy continues at UMKC with the E. Grey Dimond M.D. Program in International Medicine and the E. Grey Dimond M.D. Take Wing Award.

Information from the UMKC website and a legacy finding aid.

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Dr. E. Grey Dimond Papers

 Series
Identifier: KC-11-1-4
Scope and Contents

The E. Grey Dimond Papers contain correspondence, general office files, publications, and audiovisual materials related to Dimond's professional activities at the University of Missouri-Kansas City's School of Medicine, the University of Kansas School of Medicine, the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, and the American College of Cardiology. His personal papers include files related to his early life, his family and household, and his China trips.

Dates: 1913-1995, undated

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