Robert Francis Patrick Cronin (1 September 1926 – 13 January 2007) was a cardiologist, researcher, professor, and healthcare consultant, who served as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University from 1972 to 1977.

Having skipped a few grades, he enrolled at Princeton University at the age of sixteen, though he interrupted his study when he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943, training as a tail gunner at the Borden Base.

Additionally, he collaborated with the Canadian International Development Agency to set up student exchange programs with Kenya, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Tunisia.

For the next fifteen years, he continued to work for the Aga Khan Health Services, overseeing the construction and operation of hospitals and healthcare facilities in Tanzania, Pakistan, and Nairobi, as well as setting up their curriculum for educating medical personnel.

[1] In 2005, having taken 52 years and 111 days to earn this degree, he received a citation in the Guinness Book of World Records as the student who had spent the longest time in an undergraduate program.