Francisco Lancís Sánchez

Francisco Lancís was a true promoter and living symbol of Medical Ethics in Cuba.

Summarizing the professor's life is very difficult, considering his long and fruitful trajectory in the medical sector and, above all, in the teaching of Legal Medicine and Medical Ethics and Deontology.

He graduated as a physician in 1929. He began his work in the specialty of Legal Medicine four years later, when he was appointed to the Municipal Forensic Medical Service of La Habana.

In 1938 he entered, through competitive examination, as a medical examiner and professor in the Chair of Legal Medicine and Toxicology. Here he received excellent training alongside his mentor, Professor Raimundo de Castro y Bachiller.

In 1943 his great scientific triumphs began with the presentation of his brilliant thesis for appointment: "The Application of Ultraviolet Fluorescence to the Identification of Milk and Colostrum Stains". In 1954 he held his famous competitive examinations to officially enter university teaching. These examinations were significant, among other reasons, because he obtained 100 points in each of the five exercises of the competitive examination, and because in the curriculum he presented, in the form of a book, he included six lessons on moral or medical ethics.

His curriculum for the subject developed in the form of a book presented to said exercises, a volume of 386 pages, constitutes a magnificent example of the erudition achieved, already at that time, by Professor Lancís in the subjects of his chair.

At the "General Calixto García" Hospital, where he worked for 55 years, in addition to his subject at the Faculty of Medicine, he taught, for eighteen years (1939-1957), Legal Obstetrics and Health Legislation at the School of Midwives or Matrons attached to that Faculty; he wrote his five textbooks, two pamphlets, more than one hundred scientific articles and collaborated on seven other books; he presided for many years, until the end of his life, over the National Commission of Medical Ethics and the Scientific Council of the Hospital.

The outstanding work of Professor Francisco Lancís y Sánchez in the field of Legal Medicine, especially after the revolutionary triumph, makes him rightfully considered the most prominent figure in the specialty in the second half of the twentieth century, as well as the savior and enhancer of this science in the Cuban context.

Simplicity, modesty, sensitivity, dedication and constant example are attributes of this professor's life, worthy of emulation and for which he would serve as President of the National Commission of Medical Ethics, from its creation until his death.