Dr. Ralph J. Slonim Jr., a prominent South Florida cardiologist who established Baptist Hospital's first coronary ICU and worked with Jackson Memorial Hospital's first open-heart surgery team, died on Oct. 13.

His wife and longtime medical partner, Dr. Roberta Raymond Slonim of Miami, said he succumbed to stomach cancer. He was 83.

Instantly recognizable for his distinctive gait -- he bounced -- Slonim was an innovator who would ``try anything to save someone's life,'' said Diane Bolton, RN. Now Baptist's nursing operations director, she helped him establish the six-bed cardiac ICU in 1969.

``We used to call him `Mr. Wizard' [because] he tried things that were not standard practice, and once in awhile it worked,'' said Bolton. ``He was very progressive, very creative,'' and a talented diagnostician.

``Ralph was smart and he knew how to get right at the core of what was going on,'' said Dr. Wayne Siegel, former Baptist cardiology chief. ``He was Columbo'' -- the television detective -- ``with a white coat.''

Slonim was instrumental in designing the cardiac ICU, which he oversaw as medical director, and much preferred seeing patients at the hospital than the office, said his wife.

``The sicker the patient, the more alive he was. He used to get a headache from the everyday practice.''

If the hospital called a ``code blue'' emergency, ``Ralph was there the very first,'' said Roberta Slonim, who handled most of the office calls.

Ralph Joseph Slonim Jr. was born in Plainfield, N.J. After his freshman year at Yale University, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served three years during World War II as a frontline medic and pharmacist, returning from Europe with frostbitten feet, his wife said.

After the war, he returned to Yale and completed his undergraduate studies.

He earned advanced and medical degrees from Rutgers and Columbia universities and the University of Maryland before joining the University of Miami School of Medicine as a researcher in 1957.

He studied blood clotting and early heart-lung machine technology before launching his practice and a half-century teaching career at UM and the Veterans Administration Hospital.

He and Roberta Raymond married in 1958 and set up a joint practice, which she maintains. He continued teaching after he stopped seeing patients in 1990.

Determined that cost shouldn't prevent care, Ralph Slonim would charge $10 per office visit or take backyard produce in trade as long as he practiced, said his daughter, Dr. Suzanne Slonim, an interventional radiologist.

``He had a deep-seated sense of what was right,'' she said. ``I don't know if he'd put the words `social justice' to it, but he thought people should be taken care of.''

As a doctor, he taught her ``that no matter what else is going on, when you're talking to a patient, nothing else matters,'' said his daughter, who lives in Dallas.

He treated medical students the same way, said Dr. Bernard J. Fogel, a former student, now the UM medical school's dean emeritus.

``He was an extraordinary individual, an excellent teacher and superb role model -- a gentleman you had unbelieveble respect for,'' said Fogel.

Dr. Joseph T. Ostroski, a surgeon at Baptist for most of the time the Slonims practiced there, recalled the couple as ``inseparable'' and Ralph as ``ebullient.''

``He had that long stride and he was full steam ahead, and always had a plain good old joke to tell you.''

When asked how he was, Slonim invariably replied, ``Terrrrrific!'' Ostroski recalled. ``He was positive all the time.''

In the family, ``he was the fun daddy,'' his wife said. ``He participated in carpool,'' driving mornings while she did the afternoon pickup.

No matter how busy he was with patients and hospital committees, Slonim was always home for dinner with the family, his daughter said.

``If he had to go back to the hospital afterward, he'd go.''

In retirement, Slonim became an active member of the Miami Watercolor Society. The group's second vice president, Diane Lary, described his work in transparent watercolors as ``impressionistic.

In some cases, he would do an Andy Warhol-type series of four different looks of the same image.

And while other society members make their living as artists, Slonim ``felt honored to be able to give his work away,'' Lary said. A serious oenophile, Slonim belonged to several wine societies, and with his wife, traveled often to Europe's wine-producing regions during grape-harvest season.

Slonim's hearing began to fail about two years ago, his wife, said, but ``even to his very last day, his mind was perfect.''

Just before he died, he said he felt ``terrrrific!''

In addition to his wife and daughter, Slonim is survived by son Lloyd Slonim, a Providence, R.I., electrical engineer, and brother Donn Slonim, a Rhode Island attorney.

A funeral was held.