* Dr. Leonard Rosoff Sr.; County-USC Surgeon

Dr. Leonard Rosoff Sr. 88, leading surgeon at County-USC Medical Center for half a century. Born in Grand Forks, N.D., Rosoff first came to USC as an undergraduate, earning a bachelor’s degree and working as night editor of the Daily Trojan. He earned his medical degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and then returned to County-USC for his residency. Except for service in the Army Medical Corps in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II, Rosoff was a fixture at Los Angeles’ massive medical complex from 1935 until his retirement in 1985. He was the hospital’s chief of surgical services from 1955 to 1977. The first full-time member of the USC Department of Surgery, Rosoff headed that department from 1969 to 1979. He appointed the first woman to the USC surgical residency program and hired the first woman faculty member for the school’s surgical faculty. A specialist in endocrine surgery, he was widely respected for his work with parathyroid and peptic ulcer problems. Rosoff was elected president of the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract in 1980 and president of the American Assn. of Endocrine Surgeons in 1984. From 1970 to 1976, he was a director of the American Board of Surgery. On Sunday in Bellevue, Wash., of congestive heart failure.