Dr. Raymond Pruitt: Founding Dean of the Mayo Medical School

Raymond Donald Pruitt was born February 6, 1912, to Lyman Burton and Ada Josephine Brandes Pruitt in Wheaton, Minnesota. Raymond’s father, Lyman, was seven years old when his father died and his mother became a widow with eight children. The family was poor, but Lyman managed to get an education by attending William Jewell Academy (high school) for two years. He became a teacher in Pottawatomie County, Iowa, where he served for ten years and eventually became a high school principal. During school breaks, he was a farm laborer in the area. On February 4, 1909, Lyman married Ada Josephina Brandes in nearby Hancock, Iowa. In 1910, Lyman decided to stake a claim on a farmstead near Grover, Colorado, moving his family, which by then included the couple’s firstborn son, Robert.  That experiment didn’t last long, and Lyman changed occupations, becoming a Baptist minister in Wheaton, Minnesota. It was there that Raymond was born.

Raymond’s family moved frequently as his father initially served Baptist congregations in Croydon and Colfax, Iowa, as well as Wheaton.  In 1914, Raymond’s father changed denominations, becoming a Methodist minister in Kansas. Again, the family moved frequently over the years as Raymond’s father served churches in Perry, Soldier, Wamego, Rosedale, Overbrook, Seneca, and Garnett. When Raymond graduated from high school, the family was living in Seneca, Kansas.

As was the case for a number of sons of Methodist ministers, Raymond chose to enroll at Baker University. Raymond was active in campus life.  He joined the Zeta Chi fraternity, where he served as President in his senior year. He was President of his class during his freshman and senior years and was President of the Student Commission in his senior year.  He was on the varsity swim team as well as participating in intramurals in basketball and tennis. He was a member of the French Club and worked as a laboratory assistant in Zoology. 

Raymond majored in Biology and English, and his favorite class was English Language and Literature – Victorian Prose and Poetry.  Raymond’s favorite professor was Colin Cuthbert Alexander, whom he admired for his remarkable sense of humor and insight into literature.  Alexander was head of the English Department at Baker and taught there for 33 years until he died in 1947

Raymond enjoyed Baker because of the “intimate and unique relationship between students and faculty,” and the most important thing he learned was “the interplay between culture and values, particularly illustrative in the history of Kansas.”  In his three years at Baker, he achieved one of the highest scholastic records ever, making straight “A’s” in every class in chemistry and the other sciences as well as English and history. In 1932, he was recommended as Baker’s candidate for a Rhodes scholarship. He competed against other students at the state, district, and national levels, and the following year, he achieved his goal of being named a Rhodes Scholar. Raymond graduated from Baker in 1933 with a B. S. degree. Only four Baker graduates have become Rhodes Scholars.

From the 1933 Baker yearbook

That same year, he traveled to attend Oxford as a part of the scholarship program.  His thoughts about his time there “were intermittently pleasant, stressful, revealing, and rewarding. Viewed in retrospect, the most significant and enduring impact was on the elements essential to a great university. They are teachers who reflect a diversity of powerful lifestyles, and students responsive to those teachers and eager to learn from them. By these criteria, Baker University in our day came off very well”. He spent three years at Oxford and received a B.A. degree.

Returning to Kansas, he attended medical school at the University of Kansas, where he earned an M. D. degree in 1939.  Following an internship at the University of Kansas Hospitals (1939-40), he was a Fellow in Medicine at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota (1940-43). Raymond was appointed to the staff of the Mayo Clinic in 1943 as a consultant in internal medicine and cardiology, and in 1945, he was appointed to the faculty of the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine.  He rose rapidly through the academic ranks, and in 1954, he became a Professor of Medicine and, from 1954-59, he was Associate Director of the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and Head of Medicine for Medical Education.

In 1942, Raymond married Lillian Elaine Rasmussen. She was the daughter of Elias Rasmussen, who for many years was the pastor of the Norwegian Memorial Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, where sermons were preached in the Norwegian language. Lillian graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. In Raymond’s words, Lillian had a “pervasive and inspiring role in sustaining these professional endeavors”. To this union were born four children: Virginia (1943), Kristin (1945), David (1948), and Charles (1953). All of these children received doctorate degrees, either MDs or Ph.D's.  Virginia was a long-time professor of English at Washburn University.

In 1959, Raymond left Mayo to become Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine of Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.  Simultaneously, during 1966-67, he was also Vice President for Medical Affairs. This move was a little difficult for Raymond’s family, he said, “We dragged our four children. aged 16 to 6 years, from their beautiful hilltop home in Rochester, and deposited them in a tract house situation, a recently converted rice field in Houston, Texas.  They took one look at the house, and then wailed in unison, "But where are the trees?" Those trees were not the only things of which they felt deprived, and it was the sheer courage, sympathy, and interminable car-pooling of their mother that enabled them and me to survive. They, and we, came to love Houston.”

In 1968, Raymond returned to Rochester as Director of Education of the Mayo Foundation and Director of the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. At this time, there were discussions about whether Mayo should also develop an undergraduate school of medicine.  It was finally decided that Mayo should have an undergraduate school along with its existing graduate school, and based on Raymond’s experience both with Mayo and Baylor, he became the founding dean of the school in 1970.  He remained in this position until 1977, when, by institutional policy, he relinquished his administrative responsibilities and remained at Mayo as a clinician in cardiology for another 3 years. After his “retirement” in 1981, he continued to serve as a consultant in cardiology at the Veterans Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Raymond has received many honors in his career, not the least of which was receiving an honorary Sc.D. degree from Baker in 1956. In 1960, he was named to Baker’s Board of Trustees. In 1989, he and another one of Baker’s Rhodes Scholars, Dr. Warren Ault, were awarded the Baker University Medallion at the Founder's Day convocation on the Baker campus.  Raymond was the principal speaker, and in accepting the medallion, Raymond said, “What more can I aspire to?”  In his address, he talked about his experience at Oxford, which places the burden of learning on the student. In an interview before the convocation, he said he tries to make it back to the Baldwin campus about every five years. He went on to say, “It’s sort of a homecoming for me because I grew up in this area.” 

Approaching the age of 70, Raymond gave up his clinical duties but stayed busy writing editorials about and prefaces to his younger colleague’s scientific papers and books.  Occasionally, he authored a scientific paper of his own.  His favorite pastime in retirement was working on the 35-acre tree farm that included 10 acres where he and his sons planted walnut trees. Raymond and his wife, Lillian, who died in 1986, spent their retirement years in the Memphis area. Raymond died in 1993, and he and his wife were buried at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.

As evidenced by their recognition of him, Baker University is justifiably proud of an alumnus who accomplished so much in his career. Hopefully, his record will continue to inspire many other Baker grads to follow in his footsteps.