RICHARD S. WOLF, MD
BUILDER OF COMMUNITY
Lelan K. Woodmansee, CAE
Dr. Wolf (center) and his family during
the celebration to honor his years of
service to the GLMS Foundation and Old
Medical School Building.
R
ichard S. Wolf, MD, has the passion,
the ability and the determination to
make everything he touches better
than he found it. He is a builder of community,
whether it is for the health of children, the
greater good of all Louisville physicians and
hospitals, or the benefit of Metro Louisville
as a whole.
His retirement from the GLMS Foundation Board of Trustees gives
us pause to reflect on his many years of service. Five years ago the
Norton Healthcare Board of Trustees recognized “that for more than
52 years as a physician, administrator, advocate, ombudsman, leader
and visionary, Dr. Wolf has done the right things, at the right times,
for the right reasons, for the right people. Dr. Wolf is known by all as
one destined to serve, defined by character, guided by vision, driven
by excellence, governed by stewardship and compulsively humble.”
Dick’s circuitous route to medical school started as an engineering
student at Ohio State, where he had transferred from the University
of Chicago. “After a half year in engineering, I decided I wanted to
be an optometrist, and a half year later, a dentist,” he recalled. “I
took the math, chemistry and physics courses required for pre-dental and pre-optometry. By the time I was a senior, I wanted to go
to medical school, and I had taken only one course of mechanical
drawing. The head of the engineering school called and said, ‘I’m
throwing you out of engineering school.’ So he walked me over to
the dean of arts and sciences.”
There, Dick found a home and was accepted in the Alpha Epsilon
Delta pre-med honor society. His comparative anatomy professor
was about to become national president of the society, and invited
Dick, by now a Phi Beta Kappa, to join a carload of students to
accompany him to his installation in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
While en route, Dick received a postcard at his parents’ Cincinnati home. The draft board there desired his services as soon as he
graduated. His mother exhibited the Wolf bias for action, and called
the OSU medical school dean of admissions. Dick was accepte