Robert Edward Gross

Robert Edward Gross ( born July 2, 1905 in Baltimore, Maryland, † 11 October 1988 in Plymouth, Massachusetts) was an American physician and surgeon. Gross was a pioneer of heart surgery in children.

Life

Great was the son of a German -born immigrant and piano maker and attended the Baltimore Polytechnic 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 a MD degree in medicine in 1931. Starting in 1934, he was instructor in pathology with the completion of the residency in pathology at S. Burt Wolbach 1935. Thereafter he turned to the surgery and was Chief Resident at first Elliott Cutler at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and then at William E. Ladd at Children 's Hospital. In 1937 he was 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 a Junior Associate in Surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, and Associate Visiting Surgeon at Children's Hospital in Boston. In 1940 he was a senior associate in surgery at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and from 1947 he was chief surgeon of the Children's Hospital in Boston, where he stayed until 1967 and then to 1972 chief surgeon for heart surgery at Children's Hospital was. In 1942 he became Assistant Professor of Surgery and 1947 Ladd Professor of Child Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Work

In 1938 he was the first to arteriosus (PDA ) has been successfully operated on a patent ductus. At that time he was Chief Resident at Children's Hospital under the chief surgeon William E. Ladd. The then seven year old patient reached a great age. He had carefully prepared the risky surgery and took an absence of Ladd, in order to carry them out, as this would not allow him the surgery and then did not forgive him also. As Ladd retired in 1945 he was opposed vehemently against that Great became his successor and Franc Ingraham, director of neurosurgery, was two years interim chief of pediatric surgery before Gross was still called.

In 1945 he was named after Clarence Crafoord in Sweden, the Second who successfully operated a coarctation of the aorta. A chance to be the first to develop the following ideas of Helen Brooke Taussig, the later so-called Blalock - Taussig anastomosis for Blue baby syndrome, he did not realize at the time - as he would later regret stated he intended to Helen Taussig listen better.

In 1948, he was the first surgeon to the aortic tissue transplanted from one person to another person. They came from deceased donors, were freeze-dried and sterilized at the cyclotron at MIT. Gross was thus a pioneer of modern vascular surgery.

He wrote a standard work of pediatric surgery.

Memberships and Honors

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. He was much honorary doctorates (including Harvard, lions, Turin). He was a founding member of the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.

In 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 the first president of the American Pediatric Surgical Association. In 1959 he was honorary officer of the International Red Cross, received in the same year the Belgian Leopold- Orden ( for operation at Alexandre son of the Belgian King Leopold III. ) And in 1973 Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Private

Since his college days he was with Mary Lou Orr, the daughter of a surgeon, married. He had two daughters.

Writings

  • 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
October 11 Patent ductus arteriosus Blalock–Taussig shunt
686767
de