5 MEDICAL PEOPLE OF INTEREST
STORY AND PHOTOS BY GREG GARDNER
As a runner, Dale Ruby is the Forrest Gump of the
72
Treasure Coast. The 47-year-old Stuart medical
professional just won’t stop, even after being hit
by a truck during a Miami triathlon five years ago.
“It was a life-changing moment for me,”
Ruby said. “I had a broken femur, separated shoulder and
a concussion. I have permanent hip problems, so I can’t do
the long distances anymore. I had doubts that I would walk
again, but I have run 50 races since then.”
Ruby’s office at the Ocala Heart Institute in Stuart boasts a
shelf full of first-place trophies. While he almost always wins
in his age group, Ruby’s goal is to outrun as many of the
younger runners as he can.
Just about any day of the week, he can be seen running the
bridges of Stuart or riding his bicycle as cross-training for
mini-triathlons. Every day Ruby runs, cycles or swims. Ruby
counts as one of his greatest accomplishments his placing
823rd out of 1,500 competitors in the 1996 Hawaiian Ironman
Triathlon — a 2.4-mile swim and a 112-mile bike ride followed
by a 26.2-mile marathon run. He also ran the Boston
Marathon in the same year.
But Ruby takes more pride in the results of his annual
world travel. For the past
eight years, he has taken
his two weeks of vacation
and accompanied
Ocala heart surgeons who
perform instructional
surgeries in China, Inner
Mongolia, India and
Tanzania. Ruby operates
the heart-lung bypass
machine that supports
a patient’s organs while
surgery is being performed.
He also assists
the surgeons.
“It’s purely voluntary,”
Ruby said. “We donate
time and supplies. We
show them more advanced
techniques. I feel
like when we leave our
work is continuing.”
A slender, quiet man, Ruby is not shy about his Christian
faith.
“Our group is Christian-based,” he said. “The trips are an
outreach. We share the medicine and we share the faith. We
tell them God loves them and give them Bibles in Chinese.
You have to use discretion in places like China. We talk to
people one on one, and we don’t talk to crowds. We are actually
invited by the government.
“The areas we go to don’t have the caliber of care we have.
We train their doctors. The people feel isolated from the rest
of the world. The most rewarding experience is seeing how
grateful the people are. They appreciate that we are showing
an interest in trying to help them.” Ruby said.
The Ocala Heart Institute teams typically perform up to
three surgeries a day for more than a week. A U.S. hospital
recently donated a bypass machine to the hospital in Tanzania,
and Ruby and his team members arrived shortly after to
educate the local doctors. “In Tanzania they had never done
heart surgery before. I feel like God called us to go there. We
worked on young patients with large families. You just pray
for a good outcome,” he said.
“Being in heart surgery has given me the opportunity to
help people with physical and spiritual needs,” Ruby said.
“I wanted to go into an area where I could help people in
life and death situations. Even though you can minimize the
risks, it’s still life and death every time we try to fix someone’s
heart. The operating room is a very exciting place to
be,” he said.
Just like Forrest Gump, Dale Ruby never looks back, pre-
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The
RUNNING MAN
Dale Ruby poses with some of his running trophies in his office.