Roger Gorski Ph.D. ’62

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As a professor of anatomy and ophthalmology, Roger Gorski has the uncommon ability to communicate with and relate to any type of audience. His humanity shines through the authority of the professor, making it easy for students to learn through his elegantly simple manner of illustrating even the most difficult of subjects. A colleague in medicine observes: “Dr. Gorski has an uncanny ability to visualize structures in planes other than those seen by the eye, and to draw them with such clear perspective in colored fluorescent chalk that his students get a three-dimensional picture. His masterful blackboard drawings in cross-sectional anatomy, known as ‘Gorski Specials,’ have caused one class to dub him ‘Leonardo da Gorski.” A former student spoke of the indelible impact Dr. Gorski had made on his career and goals, declaring that he now realized the true inseparability of the roles of teacher and researcher.

Dr. Gorski has won certificates for teaching and counseling excellence from anatomy graduate students and the Golden Apple Award from the American Medical Association. We are proud to honor Roger Gorski, for his skill, dedication, and humanity, with the Graduate Teaching Award.

An anatomist of international stature and chair of the department of anatomy at the UCLA Medical School, Dr. Gorski was presented the 1982 UCLA Professional Achievement Award. By that time, his pioneering research in developmental neuroendocrinology had won him the Ernst Oppenheimer Memorial Award in 1976. However, the scope of his professional expertise also extended beyond laboratory research. He was honored for outstanding teaching ability with the Lederle Medical Faculty Award in 1966 and the UCLA School of Medicine Golden Apple Award in 1980.

Dr. Gorski was an elected member of the Endocrine Society Council, president of the Society for the Study of Reproduction and an appointed member of the Population Research Committee of the National Institutes of Health. In addition, he served on the Blue Ribbon Commission of the American Association of Anatomists. Dr. Gorski earned his Ph.D. at UCLA in 1962.