Coller was born on 2 October 1887 at Brookings, South Dakota, the son of Granville James Coller MD and Helen Rosalie Underwood. He qualified from Harvard in 1912 and became an intern at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He came to Europe during the 1914-18 war as a member of the Harvard Medical Unit, led by Harvey Cushing. When Coller returned to the United States, he was appointed head of one of the surgical services at the University of Michigan under Hugh Cabot, whom he succeeded as director of surgery in 1930. Coller was assistant Professor of Surgery, University of Michigan 1920; Associate Professor 1923; Professor 1925; Chairman of the Department of Surgery 1930, and retired with the title of Emeritus in 1957. He was surgeon to St Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ann Arbor from 1932. Cabot's friendship with Sir Holburt Waring during the 1914-18 war had led to a close association between Bart's and Michigan University Hospital, and many young English surgeons went over there for postgraduate study; Coller continued this tradition. In the year that Coller went to Michigan, LeRoy Abbott was appointed Assistant Professor of Surgery in Orthopedics. Each had an interest in the other's field and on several occasions exchanged operations in their respective departments. They remained the closest of friends, though Abbott eventually went to the University of California as Director of Orthopedics. Before the days of antibiotics and intestinal antiseptics Coller taught that the peritoneum could withstand fecal contamination in small amounts with impunity. Coller's greatest contribution was the training of young surgeons. Some two hundred men came under his tutelage during his thirty-seven years at Michigan. He established a system of resident training in many hospitals throughout the State of Michigan, and his own residents were "farmed out" for varying periods of time to implement this programme. He believed the University had an obligation to provide well trained surgeons for local communities throughout the State. He liked his surgeons to be thoughtful, and not given to impulsive actions or snap judgments, and preferred to stimulate fellowship instead of competition among his students. He was chiefly interested in abdominal and thyroid surgery, and was a pioneer in the study of fluid balance. In the early 1930s Coller excised a primary malignant growth from a lung. About the same time he gave up the use of catgut sutures, adopted steel wire for closure of abdominal wounds, and began to use silk for all other procedures. Coller served on committees of the American College of Surgeons and the American Board of Surgery, to improve the training of residents, and to raise hospital standards. While he was President and later a Regent of the American College of Surgeons, great advances were made in these two fields. Medical history was one of his interests, and his lectures to second-year students on the contributions made by famous men were eagerly attended. During the second world war Coller was a medical adviser to the Armed Forces at Washington. He had been visiting professor to several universities, and had lectured in England and South America. A group of his students formed the "Frederick A Coller Surgical Society" in 1947. The funds of the society, among other things, enable senior residents to visit surgical clinics. Coller was a good talker, critical, tolerant and sympathetic. He was well dressed, sociable and hospitable; enjoyed golf, and was interested in contemporary art. His father had practised medicine at Los Angeles till he was 90, and remained in good health till his death at the age of 97. Frederick Coller died at Ann Arbor on 5 November 1964, survived by his wife, Jessie Edwards Bernsen, whom he married in 1917, and their two daughters.