Israel Borrajero Martínez

renowned pathologist, Doctor of Sciences Israel Borrajero Martínez.

Specialist of I and II degree in Pathological Anatomy, full and emeritus professor of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana, full member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, Professor Borrajero was born on January 16, 1930.

Son of a family of small farmers in the fields of San José de los Ramos, province of Matanzas, from a very young age he worked in farm labor, helping his parents, as the only male child. At age 9 he began attending primary school in the town of San José de los Ramos, and because of what he had learned at home, he was placed in third grade.

He completed primary education at age 14, always alternating his studies with agricultural work, and at age 16, with help from relatives, he enrolled in the first year of high school through distance learning at the Secondary School Institute of Cárdenas. In three years he completed all high school subjects and in 1949 he enrolled and passed the first year of medical school, also through distance learning and always alternating his studies with agricultural work.

In 1950 he officially enrolled in the second year of medical school and moved to Havana to live with a sister. Mid-year he entered as an intern at the "América Arias" Maternity Hospital, assigned to the department of pathological anatomy, under the direction of Dr. Francisco Gálvez y Gálvez. During his internship at the hospital he was assigned the responsibility of conducting autopsy studies of all fetuses and newborns who died, as well as maternal deaths that occurred, under the supervision of Dr. Gálvez. He was also assigned weekly shifts as a student assistant on the Obstetrics teams.

During a long period, he worked shifts in the hospital's blood transfusion department, directed by Dr. Juan Bencomo. The autopsy results of greatest interest were presented at the medical staff's work meetings of the hospital. Over the course of 6 years he performed more than 2,000 perinatal autopsies that allowed him to complete his thesis for finishing the career with a work titled "Intrauterine anoxia as a cause of death of the fetus and newborn," which was highly valued by the committee presided over by Professor Julio Ortiz Pérez.

In 1952 he also began attending as a student assistant to the department of pathological anatomy of the "General Calixto García" hospital, under the direction of Professor Pedro León Blanco, which allowed him to acquire training and knowledge in Adult Pathology, performing hundreds of necropsies.

From January 1953 he began attending the gynecology consultations of doctors Raúl Infante and Rodríguez Garmendia for the collection of cytological and cervico-vaginal examination samples as well as performing biopsies of the cervix and endometrium, and also for the study of surgical specimens from operated cases, through which he acquired knowledge and deepened his understanding of gynecological pathology and cervico-vaginal cytopathology, which during that era was being extended through the work of Papanicolau.

In 1954 he assumed the task of conducting post-mortem studies of all deceased from the Premature service of the Albertini ward, directed by Professor Aballí at the "General Calixto García" hospital.

He completed his thesis at the end of 1955 and presented it in the first days of 1956, graduating as Doctor of Medicine. He continued living in the internship, assigned to the department of Pathological Anatomy of the hospital, but on March 14, 1957, as a consequence of the attack on the Presidential Palace, an eviction order was received at the hospital for the internship, with the threat of police occupation under suspicion of harboring revolutionaries and they were right, as at that moment there were several conspirators and Sergio del Valle was on his way to the Sierra Maestra.

At the end of 1957 and with favorable opinions from the director of "América Arias" hospital, from Professor Aballí and Professor León Blanco, Borrajero was appointed Necropsy Pathologist of the department of Pathological Anatomy of the Surgical-Clinical hospital at 26 and Boyeros, under the direction of Professor León Blanco, head of the department.

In mid-1958 Professor Pedro León Blanco died suddenly from a heart attack and Dr. Borrajero was left in charge of the department of Pathological Anatomy of that hospital.

With the triumph of the Revolution on January 1, 1959, a turnover occurred in the care activities of the "Joaquín Albarrán" Surgical-Clinical Hospital, with expansion of services, the incorporation of new physicians, and Professor Borrajero assumed new care and scientific responsibilities at the Center.

By that stage a group of specialists and teaching staff in Pathological Anatomy had emigrated abroad and it became imperative to train new personnel, as new hospital centers were being planned that required specialists and the only training centers were Calixto García and the Surgical-Clinical. Although he was not a member of the Chair of Pathological Anatomy of the School of Medicine, Dr. Borrajero assumed the task of incorporating new personnel into the specialty, including the training of laboratory technicians and new student assistants. In 1961 Dr. Borrajero was called by the acting director of the National Hospital, about to be inaugurated, to propose that he assume responsibility for the head of the department of Pathological Anatomy of that Institution. When this proposal was consulted with the Director of the "Joaquín Albarrán" Surgical-Clinical Hospital there was agreement that he would temporarily assume both positions.

In 1962 with the new personnel in training, Dr. Borrajero provided care support to the department of Pathological Anatomy of William Soler Hospital, which lacked a pathologist at that time. At the end of October 1962 and just after the October Crisis ended, Dr. Borrajero was proposed by the School of Medicine's direction to assume the head of the Chair of Pathological Anatomy of the School of Medicine.

Dr. Borrajero accepted the task and set out to reorganize the personnel in position and to prepare a group of recently graduated residents, interns and student assistants in Pathological Anatomy for the task of teaching the subject in the following January 1963, to a class of more than 900 students from the Victoria de Girón School of Basic Sciences.

In 1967 Professor Borrajero traveled to England for an 8-month course in Histochemistry at Hammersmith Hospital of the Post-Graduate Medical School of London, with Professor A.G.E. Pearse, which he later taught on various occasions to teaching staff and residents.

From 1962, Borrajero provided advice to the Ministers of Public Health in office, Dr. José R. Machado Ventura and Dr. Heliodoro Martínez Junco, on matters related to the specialty of Pathological Anatomy in the training of specialists and technicians and in the creation and development of new departments of Pathological Anatomy.

In 1969 he was appointed Head of the National Group of Pathological Anatomy, and organized a general update of the specialty in the country, in terms of specialists, residency in Pathological Anatomy, training of technicians, creation of new departments and prepared standardization of the work that was carried out in 1971, with the participation of all teaching staff and specialists from the provinces.

At the end of 1969 he was called to assume the head of the department of Pathological Anatomy of "General Calixto García" Hospital. In 1970 he traveled to Curacao on an official mission to study and clarify the death of a leader of that Island. In 1972 and 1974 he traveled on official missions to Europe and Japan, in advisory functions for the so-called "Sweden Plan," for the general equipment of the specialty of Pathological Anatomy in the Country. In 1977 he traveled to Ecuador, to the XII Congress of the Latin American Society of Pathological Anatomy (SLAP) and in 1979 to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where Cuba achieved the venue for the XIV Congress of this Society in 1983. He attended subsequent SLAP Congresses, chairing Cuban delegations to Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

He was appointed vice president and president of the Cuban Society of Pathological Anatomy upon the death of Professor Agustín Paramio Ruibal. In 1980 he was called to work on the planning and creation of the Department of Pathological Anatomy of "Hermanos Ameijeiras" Hospital, which was inaugurated on December 3, 1982. In that Department the National Reference Center for Pathological Anatomy was created and operates for consultation, study and diagnosis of difficult or complex cases of the specialty, from throughout the country.

Professor Borrajero worked and organized various collaboration agreements with the Universities of Extremadura, Granada, Seville and Valencia in Spain, as well as with the Italian Society of Pathology, which led to seven Spain-Cuba Scientific Conferences, six Granada-Cuba, seven Valencia-Cuba, and five Italy-Cuba, which allowed a permanent exchange of Cuban pathologists with the outside world.

In 1979 he obtained membership in the PCC and in 1980 he received the XX Anniversary medal of the triumph of the Revolution. He participated in the creation and launching of the Department of Pathological Anatomy of CIMEQ Hospital and was a permanent collaborator of this center. In 1982 he received, by award based on his professional trajectory, the degree of Doctor of Sciences and was appointed by the National Commission of Scientific Degrees as President of the Permanent Court of Diagnostic Sciences of the Biomedicine branch. He received the José Tey medals and for Cuban Education, the Frank País order and the Dr. Carlos J Finlay Order for his scientific trajectory.

He was president of the Court for obtaining a 2nd degree in the specialty of Pathological Anatomy and was a Full Member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. He received the Commemorative medal of the 250th Anniversary of the founding of the University of Havana and the Diploma of University Dignity in 1994.

He was a Full Member of the Latin American Society of Pathology and on two occasions Vice President and President of this Society and of two Latin American Congresses held in Cuba; member of Honor of the Spanish Society of Cytology, of the Italian Society of Cytology, President of the Cuban Division of the International Academy of Pathology and of the First Congress of this Division held in Cuba.

He was an honorary visiting Professor of the University of Salamanca in 1995, honorary member of the Central American Association of Pathology, and Honorary Member of the Mexican Association of Pathologists.

Since 1962 he served as Full Professor of Pathological Anatomy and participated in the development of the residency program in Pathological Anatomy on two occasions, in the revision for the new proposal of this Program, in the development of the degree program in health technology, cytohisto pathology branch and in the development of the proposal for the master's program in cytopathology.

He was Professor of Merit of the Medical University of Havana. As Head of the National Group of Pathological Anatomy, he conducted more than 50 visits of control and assistance or inspection to provinces and prepared lists of needs for higher levels. He conducted scientific work and publications on topics of intrauterine anoxia and perinatal pathology, lung cancer, disseminated intravascular coagulation, cervical cancer, dengue pathology, epidemic neuropathy, transplant pathology and lymphoma pathology.

As Head of the Reference Center for Pathological Anatomy, he studied and diagnosed more than 12,000 consultation cases from 55 hospitals in all provinces of the country and more than 100 cases from abroad. He participated in more than 150 national and international events, and made 50 publications in scientific and medical journals and two books.

In 2016 he received the decoration of Hero of Labor of the Republic of Cuba and was awarded the Prize for Scientific Merit for his lifetime work, in the context of the forty-first edition of the "Annual Prize for Health" competition, which is awarded by the Ministry of Public Health.

At the time of his death he was a member of the team of experts in pathological anatomy that every Tuesday and Thursday, since April 2020, meets at the "Hermanos Ameijeiras" Surgical-Clinical Hospital in Havana, to analyze the autopsies of those who died from COVID-19 coming from several centers in the country and, based on joint criteria, establish a more qualified diagnosis from the scientific point of view.

The beloved Professor Borrajero, who always stood out for his simplicity, will be remembered by Cuban pathologists as an example of a professional dedicated to his specialty, sharing his knowledge with colleagues, students and co-workers.