Ed Fry ’79 and Jeff Greenberg ’80

What do hands and the heart have in common? Myriad aspects, to be sure, but there is a specific and rather unique Grinnell connection in the Indianapolis medical community. Hand surgeon Jeff Greenberg ’80 and cardiologist Ed Fry ’79 began a parallel journey during their Grinnell years that continues to this day.

Fry and Greenberg are presidents of their respective associations: the American College of Cardiology and the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.

The doctors first met 44 years ago in James Hall. Greenberg and Fry lived on the same floor when Greenberg was in his first year at Grinnell.

Unbeknownst to one another, Fry and Greenberg later moved to Indianapolis at the same time. A chance encounter brought them together again. “While on our first grocery run, my wife and I literally bumped carts with the Greenbergs, who had also just arrived,” says Fry. Since then, the lives of these two have remained in orbit.

Both doctors have done groundbreaking research over the years, and recently Greenberg cowrote a paper with one of Fry’s partners on a new approach for diagnosing a rare heart condition called amyloidosis.

“It is not hyperbole to say that neither one of us would have had the opportunities we’ve had if it weren’t for Grinnell,” Fry says.