National Post (National Edition)
Surgeon instrumental in start of Herbie Fund
The name of Dr. Robert Filler, who died in Toronto on July 2, will forever be coupled with that of Herbie Quinones.
The New York boy was born in 1978 with a rare birth defect, a windpipe compressed between his esophagus and a major artery. This made it difficult for him to breathe, but the operation to fix the problem was equally rare — and the boy’s parents, Herbie Sr. and Leticia Quinones, could not afford the life-saving surgery.
Enter Filler. In 1979, Filler was the head of pediatric surgery at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. He offered his services to the Quinones family for free.
But that still left the cost of travel to Toronto and Herbie’s hospital stay — until a photo of the seven-monthold on a newspaper front page caught Gina Godfrey’s eye.
“I was pregnant with my third child, so the picture resonated,” she says.
She and her husband, Paul — now executive chairman of Postmedia — started fundraising, and by February that year, Herbie came to Toronto for his surgery.
“I am working today. I am a foreman for a mechanical company and I love it,” Quinones told the Toronto Sun on a visit to the city to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his successful operation.
In the end, the publicity generated by Herbie’s case embarrassed authorities in New York into paying the parents’ expenses.
This left the Godfreys with an enviable problem: a $17,000 surplus. Thus a new foundation, the Herbie Fund, was born.
In the early years, Filler’s wife, June, took on the fundraising from the basement of Sick Kids. Today, the foundation has helped more than 800 disadvantaged children from around the world.
As a surgeon, one of Filler’s specialties was separating conjoined twins. He was involved in eight such procedures. In addition, he pioneered telemedicine, enabling doctors to treat patients at a distance, and predicted robots could be used to operate in this way.
“He was brilliant but humble,” said Pauline Menkes, a family friend. “He was a wonderful figure in medicine.”
Robert Martin Filler was born on March 3, 1931, in Brooklyn. N.Y., the eldest son of Barnet Filler and Lilian Cohen. His father had emigrated from Russia; his mother was a native New Yorker.
From about the age of 12, the young Filler wanted to be a doctor. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, then enrolled at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., graduating cum laude. But he still had no idea what specialty to pursue, so he asked his parents.
“My family told me, ‘Surgeons have a better life, they receive more glory,’” he said in an interview with Maclean’s magazine in 1984.
What followed set him on a path that changed his life and those of countless patients — he was drafted as an army surgeon in Vietnam, working in a MASH unit. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that busy, so in his spare time, Filler volunteered with a leper colony and at local hospitals.
Much of his work consisted of treating children, repairing cleft palates, a common disability in the area. After his military service, Filler was tapped to become chief of clinical surgery at the Children’s Medical Hospital in Boston and an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.
While in Boston, Filler met June Risman, a graduate of Boston University and a grade school teacher.
“When he moved to Boston, he was told there were cute twins (called June and Joan) he should look up,” said Menkes. “When he called the number he had been given, June answered the phone and the rest is history.”
The couple married in 1957 and had three children, Stephen, Richard and Larry. Despite his busy professional life, Filler had “a strong sense of family and ethics,” said Stephen, now a lawyer in New York. “He always knew what was the right thing to do.”
His parents embraced Canada and the community they found in Toronto, becoming “proud Canadians,” said their youngest son, Larry.
Filler was something of an introvert though he was quite sociable. “He never called anyone,” said Larry. “My mom made the arrangements.”
His dad also loved to read, especially about U.S. history and politics. In his later years, he took up golf and was an avid sports fan.
June died in 2017. Filler is survived by their three sons and eight granddaughters. Though none of the sons have followed in their father’s footsteps, several of the grandchildren may well do so.
“He was one of the most humanitarian human beings I can remember,” says Gina Godfrey. “He had a great bedside manner and always made time for the patient … there should be more Bob Fillers in the world.”