Harold Smith Ramos

Harold Smith Ramos peacefully transitioned from this world on the morning of February 1, 2021. Dr. Ramos was born July 20, 1928 in Atlanta, GA. He was the youngest of four children of Rafael (Ralph) “Chico” and Louise (nee Price) Ramos and attended Atlanta Public Schools, including the last graduating class of Boys High in 1945. He received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD and medical degree from the Medical College of GA, in Augusta. After service in the Air Force at Walter Reed Army Hospital, the Army Institute of Research, Wiesbaden, Germany and Keesler Air Force base in Biloxi, MS. he returned home to become chief of medicine and director of medical education at Crawford W. Long Hospital (CWL) in 1963. He became medical director in 1985. He had a long distinguished career where he helped develop the Carlyle Fraser Heart Center, establishing a unified inter-hospital rotation of postgraduate programs in medicine at Emory, CWL, the VA, and Grady Hospitals, and many other accomplishments. In the medical community he was known for his compassionate patient care and advocacy, and his fair and ethical administration. Dr. Ramos was known by his patients for his caring and honesty, and his family and friends for his dry wit, love of practical jokes, and an abiding love of learning and curiosity. He enjoyed reading, travel, skiing, and most of all taking care of his patients. Harold mostly listened when he gathered with friends and family, but if you were lucky, he would regale you with stories about chasing his brothers’ pet monkey when it got loose around Atlanta’s streets, whether his birthday was July 20, 21 or both, driving through Appalachia to deliver health care to very wary residents, pulling antics on his mother-in-law when camping as a family, scheming with his sons to place a fake but very real looking hand in different places to scare his daughter at home or drivers on the road, and many other tales. The most fun was when people around him shared their own stories of “Happy Hal” on the ski slopes, telling his children they “saw it wrong” when they watched football together, his language of many “humpfs” and their translations, his traveling companions’ tales of his escapades of daring or interactions with animals, how his devotion to his patients kept him working well past his official retirement(s), and so many more. We will love and cherish these many memories. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife, Vonetta W. Ramos, sister Rachel, twin brothers, Marvin and Marion, 3 sisters-in-law and a brother-in-law. He is survived by his wife of 27 years, Barbara, children Cathy Ramos (Stephen Barnes), Ralph Ramos (Betsy), and Steve Ramos (Liz Hendley), stepsons Todd Lavender (Patti) and Dean Lavender (Marlynn), 7 grandchildren and multiple sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews. Memorial gifts may be made to the Harold S. Ramos, MD Lecture Series at Emory School of Medicine or to Northside United Methodist Church. A service of remembrance for family and friends will be held at a later date.