George Crile, Jr.

George Washington "Barney" Crile Jr. (November 3, 1907 – September 11, 1992) was an American surgeon. He was a significant influence on how breast cancer is treated and was a visible and controversial advocate for alternative procedures.

Crile was the son of famous surgeon and founding partner of the Cleveland Clinic, George Washington Crile.

After attending the University School and the Hotchkiss School, Crile attended Yale University, where he was on the football and track teams and was a member of Skull and Bones. He graduated in 1929. He earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1933, graduating summa cum laude and first in his class. He chose to intern at the Barnes Hospital (1933–34) under surgeon Evarts Ambrose Graham, noted for successfully removing a lung from a cancer patient.

He spent the rest of his medical career at the Cleveland Clinic. After his residency there (1934–1937), he joined the surgical staff in 1937, served as head of the general surgery department (1956–1969), senior consultant (1969–1972), and emeritus consultant (1972–1992).

During World War II, he served in the US Navy (1942–46), stationed at naval hospitals in San Diego and New Zealand. While in the Navy he researched on ruptured appendixes and discovered that they were not as life-threatening as once believed. He therefore concluded that risky emergency appendectomies on board submarines may harm the patient more than help, and that the safer option was to employ penicillin until the patient could be evacuated to a superior hospital facility. He also developed a procedure for pilonidal cysts, draining them with a catheter instead of the standard surgical excision. He later said "I came home from World War II convinced that operations in many fields of surgery were either too radical, or not even necessary. Universal acceptance of a procedure does not necessarily make it right."

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