Robert E. Gross

Born in 1905, Gross graduated with honors from Carleton College and the Harvard Medical School. After spending 2 years in pathology, he entered his surgical training at the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital and at the Boston Children's Hospital with Dr. William E. Ladd, who occupied the first Chair of Pediatric Surgery in the United States. After 3 years of basic training with a wide variety of surgical problems in both adults and children, he decided to devote his considerable talents toward solving some of the problems of children with congenital malformations. After having returned to Harvard to assume the Chief Residency in Surgery at the Boston Children's Hospital, he worked out a surgical approach to the closure of the patent ductus arteriosus, and he performed the first successful ligation of this structure. Two years later, Gross co-authored with Dr. Ladd Abdominal Surgery of Infancy and Childhood. In the laboratory Gross was actively pursuing the treatment of anomalies of the heart and great vessels. With Dr. Charles Hufnagel, he developed a practical method of preserving, sterilizing, and using aortic homografts to bridge damaged aortic areas, and thus introduced modern reconstructive vascular surgery. In 1947 Gross was named Professor of Children's Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Surgeon-in-Chief of the Boston Children's Hospital. His contributions to the literature included the classic textbook Surgery of Infancy and Childhood. Gross was elected President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery in 1964, and served as the first President of the newly formed American Pediatric Surgical Association in 1970.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)