Hermes C. Grillo was a world-famous thoracic surgeon and professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....

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He was born in Boston in 1923 and died at age 83 in a car accident in Italy on October 14, 2006. He is considered the father of tracheal surgery and wrote what is considered the definitive text on the subject, "Surgery of the Trachea and Bronchi", published in 2004.

He graduated from Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 in 1943 and Harvard Medical School in 1947. He served in the US Navy during the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 at a Division Surgeon with the US Marine Corps. He returned to Boston after the war and was chief of thoracic surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...

from 1969 to 1994.

During his years as a thoracic surgeon he created several new surgical instruments in order to successfully operate on the trachea. As of 2004, these tools are still part of multiple 'Grillo Kits' that surgeons can still use in operations at Massachusetts General Hospital.