RNC doctor delegate likes Trump’s vision for the future in healthcare

Dr. GrotzPerhaps as befits someone representing Las Vegas, Tom Grotz, MD, owed his attendance at the 2016 Republican National Convention to a deck of cards.

Grotz, a retired orthopedic surgeon, found himself in a three-way tie for two available alternate delegate seats from the Congressional district that includes Las Vegas. “So consistent with the Nevada spirit, we three were invited to the auditorium stage, where the person running the meeting brought out a deck of cards, shuffled them, and offered me the first pick,” Grotz recalled during an interview with Medical Economics at the RNC.

After deferring to the other two candidates, Grotz wound up picking the ace of clubs-and then coming to Cleveland, site of the RNC.

For Grotz, coming to Cleveland is something of a homecoming. He was born in suburban Shaker Heights, obtained his undergraduate degree from nearby Oberlin College, and his MD from Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He did an internship and residencies in San Francisco, where he subsequently practiced from 1981 until his retirement in 2008. Since then he has devoted his time to inventing devices for improving orthopedic surgery procedures.

Grotz likes what he’s heard thus far from Donald Trump. “I think Trump has a vision for the future,” he said. “When people pose challenges that are outside the box, the concept of something being impossible is non-existent. It’s just a challenge. A person with passion and principle has to stop up to meet the challenges in medicine. I think he’ll assemble a team to do that for medicine.”

Photo credit: Medical Economics