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Memorial Service Friday for Dr. Richard Steele Guy

Dr. Richard Steele Guy, MD, of St. Croix died June 24 at the Juan F Luis Hospital from a sudden and overwhelming systemic infection. He was 80.
Born in Steubenville, Ohio, Dr. Guy earned a BS in biology from Ohio State University and an MD from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.
He completed his internship at Forest City Hospital (now Metropolitan General) in Cleveland, and then served two years in the U.S.Air Force as a Captain, OB-GYN officer. He completed his residency training at Freedmans' (now Howard University) Hospital in Washington, DC.
Dr. Guy maintained a private practice of OB-GYN in Washington for 40 years. He was among the pioneers in the use of laparoscopy and cryosurgery in GYN in the Washington area. He served in various offices, including president of the Medical Staff, at Columbia Hospital for Women. He was a Life Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a Life Member of the Medical Society of D.C., and served on the D.C. Board of Medicine for many years.
Dr. Guy headed or participated in numerous local and national task forces and committees in the areas of medicine to underserved women, maternal and infant mortality, women's prison health and adoles ÈÎcent health, and the problem of "border babies" of addicted mothers. In 1998 he was honored by the D.C. Medical Society with the Dr. Charles Epps Community Service award.
In his leisure time he played tennis and also enjoyed underwater photography, scuba-diving in the Atlantic and Pacific from the Bahamas to Papua New Guinea. He was a founding member of the International Society of Aquatic Medicine in 1978, and last dove with the group in February of this year. It was diving which first brought him to St Croix, in 1973.
In 1999 Dr. Guy retired from private practice. A group of his patients organized a Potomac River luncheon cruise which was attended by over 100 people. They presented Dr. Guy with special gifts and personal anecdotes in appreciation of his care. To round out his career, his last service was the delivery of an infant to a young woman who had herself been delivered by Dr. Guy some thirty years earlier.
In 2000, Dr. Guy retired permanently to St. Croix where he took up sailing and continued to pursue long-standing interests in photography, jazz music appreciation and scuba diving. As well, he continued the work he loved, providing women's health care, consulting in gynecology for the Virgin Islands Department of Family Planning at the Frederiksted Clinic.
His first marriage to Virginia Guy-Ehlen ended in divorce.
He is survived by his wife of 33 years Tracy Murphy Guy of St. Croix; four daughters: Jenifer Guy of Baltimore, Gina Guy of New York, Suzanne Mitchell, and husband David Mitchell of Atlanta, and Nicole Guy-Lovett and husband David Lovett of New York.; one son, Peter Guy of Los Angeles; one brother, James Guy of Solon, Ohio and sister-in-law Joie Renee Guy; one nephew and one niece, ten grandchildren, and extended family, Charles and Lucille Nixon of St. Croix, and Tracy Nixon and James Lyle of New York, and numerous other relatives and friends
A memorial service will be held at 9:30 a.m., Friday, July 21 – St. Ann's Catholic Church, Barren Spot Hill. Burial will be private. Friends will join the family at Sunset Jazz in Frederiksted Friday night.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in his name are directed to the Alzheimer's Association (www.alz.org), The Easter Seals Society (www.easterseals.com), or Meharry Medical College School of Medicine Nashville, Tenn. (www.mmc.edu).

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