Robert E. Gross

Robert Edward Gross (born July 2, 1905 in Baltimore , Maryland , † October 11, 1988 in Plymouth , Massachusetts ) was an American physician and surgeon. Gross was a pioneer in cardiac surgery in children. For the first time he successfully operated on an open ductus arteriosus Botalli by ligating it .

Life

Robert E. Gross was the son of a German immigrant and piano maker and attended Baltimore Polytech High School . He studied at Carleton College with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1927 and at the Medical School of Harvard University with an MD degree in medicine in 1931. From 1934 he was an instructor in pathology, completing a residency in pathology with S. Burt Wolbach in 1935 He then turned to surgery and was chief resident first with Elliott Cutler at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and then with William E. Ladd at Children's Hospital . In 1937 he became an instructor in surgery at Harvard Medical School and in the same year he visited Europe, including Ferdinand Sauerbruch in Berlin and Edinburgh. From 1939 he was Junior Associate in Surgery at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and Associate Visiting Surgeon at Children's Hospital in Boston. In 1940 he became Senior Associate in Surgery at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and from 1947 he was chief surgeon at Children's Hospital in Boston, which he remained until 1967 and then until 1972 chief surgeon for cardiac surgery at Children's Hospital. In 1942 he became Assistant Professor of Surgery and in 1947 Ladd Professor of Pediatric Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

plant

In 1938 Gross was the first to successfully operate on a persistent ductus arteriosus . At that time he was Chief Resident at Children's Hospital under Chief Surgeon William E. Ladd. The then seven-year-old patient reached old age. He had carefully prepared the risky operation and took advantage of Ladd's absence to perform it, as the latter would not have allowed him the operation and would not have forgiven him for it afterwards. When Ladd retired in 1945, he fiercely opposed Gross becoming his successor, and Franc Ingraham, Head of Neurosurgery, was interim head of pediatric surgery for two years before Gross was appointed.

In 1945 he was the second after Clarence Crafoord in Sweden to successfully operate on coarctation of the aorta . At that time, he did not see a chance to be the first to develop the later so-called Blalock-Taussig anastomosis for the Blue Baby Syndrome following the ideas of Helen Brooke Taussig - as he later regretted, he should have listened to Helen Taussig better.

In 1948, Gross became the first surgeon to transplant aortic tissue from one person to another. They came from deceased donors, had been freeze-dried and sterilized on the MIT cyclotron . Gross was also a pioneer of modern vascular surgery.

Robert E. Gross wrote a standard work on pediatric surgery.

Memberships and honors

In 1954 and 1959 he received the Lasker ~ DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award . He was a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1949). He has received many honorary doctorates (including Harvard, Leuven, Turin). He was a founding member of the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.

1954/55 and 1958 to 1960 he was director of the American Heart Association. 1963/64 he was president of the American Association of Thoracic Surgery and 1970/71 first president of the American Pediatric Surgical Association. In 1959 he became an honorary officer of the International Red Cross, received the Belgian Order of Leopold in the same year (for the operation on the son of Alexandre of the Belgian King Leopold III.) And in 1973 became an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England .

Private

From childhood he could only see in one eye, but trained himself in depth perception.

He was married to Mary Lou Orr, the daughter of a surgeon, since college. He had two daughters.

Fonts

• with William Ladd: Abdominal Surgery of Infancy and Childhood, WB Saunders, Philadelphia and London 1941
• The Surgery of Infancy and Childhood: its principles and techniques, Philadelphia: Saunders 1953
• Surgical treatment for abnormalities of the heart and great vessels, Springfield, Illinois, CC Thomas 1947
• Atlas of Children's Surgery, Saunders 1970

Web links

• Obituary in the New York Times
• Harvard website
• Francis Moore, Judah Folkman, Biographical Memoirs National Academy