Lloyd Ramsey was extraordinary. He was an excellent clinician, a superb bench researcher, a magnetic team leader, an exceptional administrator, a wonderful father to four adopted children, and an exemplary husband to two extremely different but spectacular women.
Prior to his career as a physician, Lloyd grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, and then attended the University of Kentucky and played basketball (1940–1942) under legendary Coach Adolph Rupp. As an example of his intensity, after every practice session, it is said, Lloyd refused to leave the basketball court until he had made 10 consecutive free throws. Those consecutive free throws were sometimes long in coming. In addition to basketball, Lloyd was a golfer of some note winning the Lexington city tournament in 1938, 1939, 1940, and 1946.
Lloyd participated in ROTC at the University of Kentucky and immediately joined the United States Army infantry upon graduation. From 1942–1946, he trained officers and enlisted men at Fort McClellan, Fort Benning, and Fort Carson. At the end of World War II, Major Ramsey volunteered to be deployed to occupied Kyoto, Japan. He then attended Washington University in St. Louis where he received his medical doctorate (1950) and distinguished himself, resulting in an internship at Duke under Dr. Eugene Stead. Under the guidance of Dr. Stead, Lloyd then became an assistant resident at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital where he was under the mentorship of Harvard's dean, Dr. C. Sidney Burwell (president of the American Clinical and Climatological Association from 1942–1946). With his own standards of clinical excellence and an exceptional ability to teach and inspire others, Lloyd moved to Nashville where he became Resident in Medicine under Dr. Hugh J. Morgan. His qualities of leadership and organizational abilities became strikingly manifest.
Under the guidance of Dr. Elliot Newman, using his natural qualities as a leader and organizer, Lloyd submitted the proposal for the Program Project Grant which included several divisions within the Department of Medicine. Dr. Newman later said, “The success of the organization of the Program was due largely to his (Lloyd's) leadership which depends on a quiet modesty and humility. He has a deep sense of responsibility which does not allow any superficialities. These qualities elicit trust and respect which are the basis for his influence and authority.” During this period of time, he attracted serious-minded medical students including James Snell. Their work on pulmonary function and the diffusion of fluid and gas in the lung was notable and received international attention. While extremely busy in the laboratory, they developed the Clinical Physiology Division and the first Pulmonary Service at Vanderbilt University Hospital. According to Dr. John Oates, Lloyd's pioneering work on the measurement of vascular permeability in the lung made possible the work of Dr. James Snell, which demonstrated for the first time that endotoxin causes a marked increase in pulmonary vascular permeability. This work has been seminal to ensuing research over the subsequent two decades which has used the pulmonary reaction to endotoxin as the basis for investigating the mechanisms involved in adult respiratory distress syndrome. Dr. Ramsey attracted to his lab another Vanderbilt medical student, Kenneth L. Brigham, whose research with Lloyd, according to Dr. John Oates, resulted in “one of the most productive careers in pulmonary research in current American medicine.” At the present time (2022), Vanderbilt has more grant support than any other pulmonary division in the country.
In 1991, after a long and fruitful career as a bedside clinician, a bench scientist, and a medical administrator, Dr. Ramsey was promoted to Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, culminating 38 years as a member of the Vanderbilt medical faculty. During that period of time, he rose from Research Fellow to Chief Resident in Medicine to Professor of Medicine. This led to his increasing involvement in the administration of the Vanderbilt Medical Center, first as Coordinator of the Regional Medical Program, then as Director of Planning of the Cardiovascular Research and Training Center Program, and finally as Chief of the Medical Staff of Vanderbilt University Hospital combined with the Associate Deanship of Clinical Sciences and Associate Vice-Chancellor for Clinical Sciences. He also has served as Associate Chairman of the Department of Medicine with responsibility for academic affairs within the department. Dr. John Oates has reported, “In all these roles there has been excellence.”
With all this responsibility, one would have thought there was little time left in the day. Nevertheless, Dr. Ramsey was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New York Academy of Science, the Nashville Academy of Medicine, the Middle Tennessee Heart Association (president), the Basic Science Council of the American Heart Association, the Tennessee Heart Association, the Monroe Harding Children's Home, the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, and the Nashville University Council. He was a member and elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville. Despite these commitments, Lloyd's daughter Anne fondly remembers being taught to sail on Old Hickory Lake by her father, who had never sailed, as he, while standing on the bank, read to her from a book on sailing. Furthermore, Lloyd grew a garden which, among other produce, produced raspberries, asparagus, and peas. Anne also recalls that Lloyd was especially fond of mathematics and would often read from math textbooks for pleasure after dinner regaling her with incomprehensible concepts.
In many ways, Dr. Ramsey was the glue that held the medical center and the medical school together at Vanderbilt, often doing jobs that no one else particularly wanted to do and doing them extremely well. According to Elliot Newman, MD, “Lloyd is highly respected and liked by lay members of the community where he carries well the message of high academic standards in medicine. Socially he has a direct, mature, and pleasing approach, without compromise of his dedication to the academic tradition.”
Although markedly successful in virtually every endeavor in which he became involved, several of Lloyd's colleagues have commented that his success was in many ways derived from the fact that with each of his two wives, “He hit a home run.” Lloyd's first wife, June Clarke Byars Ramsey, was a classic beauty with all the social graces. She loved people; she loved their four children; she loved to entertain; and she loved a party. They married on June 22, 1948, and she died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) on August 8, 1981, 33 years later. Lloyd is survived by his second wife, Marie-Luise Erichson Ramsey (Malu), who is described as “European, cosmopolitan, well-put-together, and entrepreneurial.” She spoke not only German but also French, Italian, and English. Furthermore, he is survived by his four children whom he adopted with June: Anne, Robert, Craig, and Frances, and by Malu's daughter, Andrea. Marrying in 1983, they, too, were married for 33 years. After retirement, Lloyd and Malu travelled extensively between the United States and Germany. As one might expect, Lloyd became fluent in German, or thought he was. One family member recalls that Lloyd's best German word was “Budweiser.” He and Malu spent more and more time in Germany and Europe. Lloyd died at the age of 95 on October 29, 2016.