The Annual Dr. Raymond C. Grandon Lecture is an annual endowed lecture that commemorates and honors the legacy of Dr. Grandon who was a lifelong Pennsylvanian who earned his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in 1945. He completed a nine month general internship at St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, served in the United States Army and completed a residency in internal medicine at the Harrisburg Hospital in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Dr. Grandon subsequently entered private practice as a solo practitioner.
An internist with a special interest in cardiovascular disease, Dr. Grandon was responsible for the first televised heart operation in the United States. He was a clinical investigator in cardioactive drugs, the first of which was reserpine for hypertension. Dr. Grandon also helped to coordinate the nation's first commercially successful cardiac rehabilitation program utilizing graded exercise with continuous oscilloscope monitoring.
Long active in voluntary medical and community organizations, Dr. Grandon was also involved with medical issues at the state level; as a member of the Governor's Commission on Alcoholism; as the first Medical Director of the Pennsylvania Health Department's Counseling Center on Alcoholism; as a member of the State Board of Medical Education and Licensure; and as a member of the Health Department's Laboratory Advisory General's Advisory Committee and the Attorney General's Advisory Committee on Drug and Alcohol Problems. At the national level, he served as a committee member of the Federation of State Medical Licensing Boards, and as a Delegate and Trustee of the American Society of Internal Medicine.
After 65 years of practice serving patients in Central Pennsylvania, Dr. Grandon retired on December 31, 2015. He passed away on December 9, 2018 at Pinnacle Health Harrisburg Hospital at the age of 99. He was surrounded by his loving family at the time.
