The article "TOP
DOCS" originally ran in June 1999 in "D Magazine",
All rights reserved.
The copyright belongs exclusively to "D Magazine".
Written by Dawn McMullan.
These
doctors maybe your own personal saviors.
For
Gary Gross and Michael Ruff, the thrill is in the hunt.
Maybe their specialty, allergies and asthma, doesn't
sound too sexy. But in the land of mountain cedar, long
growing seasons, and gusty winds that we call home,
these doctors may be your personal saviors.
"You can be the best Alzheimer's
doctor or the best oncologist in the world, but you
can still do your best and not help a patient,"
Ruff says. "We can help. I'm treating
a boy who right now can't go on his Cub Scout camping
trip. I can fix that. And he'll think I've hung the
moon. That's neat."
Gross started the Dallas Allergy &
Asthma Center 20 years ago, with Ruff joining in 1987.
It works because the Dallas natives are so much alike.
And so different.
Gross has a background in internal
medicine, and Ruff's is in pediatrics. Gross, who prefers
patients who can speak in complete sentences, works
with the adults who find their way to the clinic. Ruff,
who grows weary of the geriatric tendency to drone on
about illnesses, handles the kids.
 They
share a respect for their patients and an obsession
with getting to the bottom of allergies and asthma,
problems they now are able to treat only at the symptomatic
level. Sure, they can treat your child's wheezing. But
they'd rather be able to treat, and cure, what starts
that wheezing.
To that end, research is an important
facet of the clinic. Willing patients spend hours at
the clinic, trying out FDA-approved drugs that aren't
yet available. The benefits to the doctors are a look
at the most cutting-edge medications and techniques,
as well as a closer relationship with their patients.
The benefits to the patients? Pizza, your own personal
nurse, and results you can't buy at Walgreens quite
yet.
"We don't know why, but asthma has seen an increase
in the last 20 years," Ruff says. "There are
many thoughts. That the world is more industrialized.
That there is less parasitic disease, and so the immune
system needs something to do. Then there is diesel exhaust
and our airtight houses, which keep everything in."
 It's
obvious that Ruff continued to learn once he joined
Gross. He quotes "Garyisms," which the elder
doctor appreciates because he says he can't remember
them.
Garyism
No. 1: The best time to treat an asthma attack is 48
hours before it happens.
Garyism
No. 2: Treat patients the way you'd like your family
to be treated.
Garyism
No. 3: When you walk in that exam room, remember that
visit is the most important thing in that patient's
life right then. --- Dawn McMullan
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