Julio Martínez Páez

Father of Orthopedics in Cuba. He was Director of the Fructuoso Rodríguez Teaching Orthopedic Hospital for more than 40 years. Dedicated to his work, he developed and contributed all his knowledge and experience to Orthopedics and Traumatology, and authored the first textbook in the subject—among his numerous scientific works and publications—which is why he can be considered the Father of Orthopedics in Cuba. He participated in numerous combat operations during the war of liberation in the Sierra Maestra, and also assumed the direction of the Medical Services of the Rebel Army. For his bravery he was promoted to Commander.

Son of Ramón Martínez and Josefa Páez, he was born in Bolondrón, Matanzas province. He completed his primary education at Mayreles schools and the Bolondrón Kindergarten. He attended secondary school at the Secondary School Institute of Havana, where he graduated in 1925. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1934.

His academic training in orthopedic specialty was also nourished by general culture, in which his theoretical and practical knowledge of music and painting stood out.

During his student years he had political and friendly relations with personalities of the caliber of Guillermo Barrientos, Julio Antonio Mella, Antonio Guiteras Holmes and Rafael Trejo.

On September 22, 1930 he was arrested at a demonstration and again arrested in another act of student rebellion on December 21, 1931, precisely the night that student Félix Alpízar was murdered. He was taken to the police station along with 38 other companions, where he received mistreatment and humiliation from Machado's henchmen. For this reason he was sentenced to 13 months of imprisonment at trial. From that date on his medical studies were interrupted by the tyranny's repression of the University of Havana and students, and he remained working as an internal student in the Gálvez Ward of the General Calixto García University Hospital, until Machado's fall, when classes resumed at the University of Havana where he graduated as Doctor of Medicine in 1934.

Once graduated, he held the position of internal physician at the General Calixto García University Hospital until 1936, when he became orthopedic surgeon at the same hospital. Concurrently, from 1936 until the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, he also held the position of orthopedic surgeon at the Medical-Surgical Center of Vedado.

He practiced pediatrics for a short time since orthopedics consumed all his interest. A student of Professor Alberto Inclán Costa, he worked in his teaching service at Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes Hospital. His teaching career was brilliant in the Chair of Orthopedics at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Havana: Assistant Professor (1944-1947), Instructor (1947-1949) and Associate Professor (1949-1957).

He came into contact with the young lawyer Fidel Castro, whom he knew by sight at the university. Later, he also came into contact with Camilo Cienfuegos, whom he had to attend years later in the Sierra Maestra as a physician, as well as other companions who were with him having been wounded in encounters with members of the Batista regime.

Already sharing Fidel's ideas and projects, he served as a physician at the Castillo del Príncipe to treat imprisoned, tortured or wounded revolutionaries. In 1957 he joined as an active member of the July 26 Movement, as part of the group of Haydée Santamaría, Armando Hart, Manolo Piñeiro, José Llanusa and Javier Pazos. He began in the activity of distributing and selling bonds, then in finding lodging and transportation for revolutionaries. In one of these activities both he and Armando Hart were arrested. In this way they prevented Haydée Santamaría from also being arrested. After his arrest, the Batista police raided his office and conducted a thorough search of his home.

But none of that intimidated the young physician with strong patriotic feelings. Some time later he sheltered Ramón Mejías, (alias) Pichirilo, at his own house, who was being tirelessly pursued by the Police. He arranged his exile in Mexico and drove him in his own car to that country's Embassy, once political asylum was granted.

In 1957 he was called by Fidel to the Sierra Maestra to assume the direction of the Military Medical Services of the Rebel Army. Under his command were doctors José Ramón Machado Ventura, José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera, Oscar Fernández Mell, Piti Fajardo, Faustino Pérez, Adolfo Rodríguez de la Vega, René Vallejo, among others.

During 1957 and 1958 Julio Martínez was assigned to Column No. 1 José Martí, under the command of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro. He participated in all combat operations, being promoted to Captain at Pino del Agua, and also participated in the battles of El Salto, Veguitas, Guisa, Jiguaní, Baire, Maffo and La Plata, where he was promoted to Commander, which was the highest rank granted in the Rebel Army during the War of Liberation. He performed countless surgical interventions in field hospitals, among which he recalls the one he performed, jointly with Commander Sergio del Valle Jiménez, on Commander Camilo Cienfuegos. It was a penetrating abdominal wound.

When the Revolution triumphed, the prestigious physicians of the island were gathered at the National Medical Association, which included most physicians with wealthy practices, owners of private clinics and executives of mutual aid centers, but also very illustrious physicians, scientists and honest and revolutionary people who fought underground. Faced with this situation, the physicians of the Military Medical System of the Rebel Army decided, together with other colleagues, to establish the political foundations and form the Medical Party of the Revolution to confront the bourgeois association.

The Immediate Action Party had as its leader Dr. Augusto Fernández Conde, spokesman for the group of bourgeois and counter-revolutionary physicians who sought to continue with their hegemony in the government of the National Medical Association, without recognizing that a true Revolution had arrived where power would be of the people and for the people.

On August 18, 1959, a large group of young revolutionary physicians including: Julio Martínez Páez, José Ramón Machado Ventura, José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera, along with a few professors and physicians who had given up their practices joined the revolutionary effort, occupying the positions of those who had left the country. They met to establish the Medical Party of the Revolution in the amphitheater of the Calixto García University Hospital.

On January 4, 1959 the first meeting of the Council of Ministers of revolutionary Cuba was held, which lasted from the beginning of that night until dawn the next day at the University of Oriente. There Dr. Martínez Páez was appointed Minister of Public Health and Social Welfare, a position he held for six months (from January 6, 1959 to June 12 of that same year).

During his tenure the preparation of health campaigns to be carried out in the country began with the signing of agreements with the Pan American Health Bureau for the execution of Malaria Eradication Programs and Aedes aegypti Control. He also signed Cuba's entry into the World Health Organization.

On February 23, 1959 the Revolutionary Government issued Law No. 100 through which the Department of Technical, Material and Cultural Assistance to the Peasantry of the Rebel Army was created.

In compliance with this Law the first medical assistance was sent to peasants in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. This fact constituted a precursor to the Rural Social Medical Service, which would be founded on January 22, 1960 by Law No. 723, bringing the state health system to the most remote places in the country.

From 1960 until his death, he held the responsibility of Director of the Fructuoso Rodríguez Teaching Orthopedic Hospital. During that time he also fulfilled other tasks assigned by the Revolution, such as: treating the wounded from the sabotage of the ship La Coubre at the General Calixto García Hospital; during the attack on Playa Girón, converting the Fructuoso Rodríguez Hospital under his direction into a Military Base Hospital; Chief Medical Officer of Oriente province during the October Crisis, among others.

In London, Derby and Edinburgh, he conducted studies in updating and training in new surgical techniques in his specialty (Hand Surgery and Scoliosis), under the supervision of Professors Poorbataff, Book, James and Parker, distinguished international personalities in the specialty.

Throughout all the years of his professional life as a teacher, independent of his responsibilities as hospital director, he held a weekly consultation on Fridays to more than 100 patients on each occasion. He rigorously fulfilled his surgical duty four days a week, conducted daily patient rounds as attending physician to all admitted patients, personally directed the hospital staff meeting once a week, and the daily teaching-care shift report. He directed and actively participated in the discussion of clinical-teaching cases twice a week.

In the 1979-1980 academic year he was the most outstanding professor in his hospital and in teaching evaluations during the first five-year period of the 1980s he was rated as a teacher with extraordinarily positive results and maintained the status of most outstanding teacher throughout that decade. He participated in numerous scientific events in which he presented works of recognized value for surgical treatment and for knowledge of the historical development of medical thought in the specialty. He also participated in an important group of research projects whose results could be introduced into clinical practice.

He held other positions of scientific responsibility such as Chief of the National Orthopedics Group, President of the Cuban Society of Orthopedics and Traumatology and Head of the Orthopedics Department of Faculty No. 1 of the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences of Havana. Among other responsibilities of a sociopolitical nature was serving as President of the Cuban-Arab Friendship Center of the Fructuoso Rodríguez Hospital.

In 1960, by agreement of the Board of Governors of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Havana, he was named Professor, a position he had held on an honorary basis since 1940. Seven years later, in 1967, as recorded in Book 1, Folio 3, with order number 61, he was validated as a specialist in 2nd Degree in the specialty of Orthopedics, and on February 19, 1976 he was awarded the category of Full Professor in his specialty, under Resolution 410/75 of the Ministry of Education which regulated the implementation of Law 1296 of May 8, 1975 on the teaching categories of university graduates who conducted scientific-pedagogical work in Higher Education.

Despite his excellent scientific-technical preparation, he was concerned with his scientific-pedagogical advancement at the same level as his professional and technical training, which helped consolidate his prestige as an extraordinary orthopedic surgeon and professor in the specialty. In the 1960s he underwent training in Great Britain and Scotland. He dedicated the 1970s to his advancement as a professor and politically in Cuba, in courses in Pedagogy, English and Marxist-Leninist Philosophy. In the 1980s he continued advanced courses in these latter specialties and also in Scientific Management.

As Principal Professor of the subject, he elaborated together with Professor Ignacio Calvo Vieta the thematic plan and analytical program for the subject of Orthopedics and Traumatology in 1978. He actively participated throughout his teaching career in the postgraduate training of future Orthopedics specialists, both in the Residency and in postgraduate courses such as: shoulder and knee surgery, pseudo-tumoral conditions, orthopedic surgical technique and bone tumors course.

In the 1994-1995 academic year he was appointed Consulting Professor and, as reflected in his teaching evaluations from that date until 1996, he actively participated in the life of his professional group, exerting positive influence on undergraduate students, resident physicians, specialists and faculty in their overall development.

For the work of a lifetime, at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the General Calixto García Faculty held on June 3, 1997, it was agreed to propose awarding the status of Professor of Merit to this illustrious Cuban medical professional, a process that once initiated reached its culmination a year later.

He advised countless specialist theses, among which stand out: Pectus excavatum, Cervical Disc Hernia, Flat Foot, Total Hip Prosthesis, Structural Adolescent Scoliosis, Surgical Treatment of Recurrent Shoulder Dislocation, Ankle Fracture, Surgical Treatment of Flat Metatarsus, Diaphyseal Femur Fractures, Femoral Neck Fractures and Scaphoid Pseudoarthrosis.

He died in Havana. Upon his death, the distinguished native of Matanzas ceased to exist—a physician, revolutionary, guerrilla fighter, outstanding orthopedic surgeon, professor of generations of physicians and nurses, a man of great culture, demanding of others and himself, a virtuoso pianist and painter; but above all, an excellent human being.

The mortal remains of Commander Physician of Column 1 of the Rebel Army, Dr. Julio Martínez Páez, rest in the Pantheon of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Upon his death he held the rank of Colonel of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

He represented Cuba's National Health System and his specialty at the Surgery and Orthopedics Congresses in Rome, Vienna, Paris and London, throughout the entire 1960s.

On May 29, 1963 he traveled to Lisbon on official business, personally sent by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, to attend Cuban prisoner of war, Colonel Pedro Rodríguez Peralta. He traveled to Santiago de Compostela, Argentina, Denmark, Greece and Japan during the 1970s to attend scientific events in his specialty. He visited the Syrian Arab Republic in 1973, in fulfillment of an internationalist mission to assist war wounded, and participated directly on the battle front. He traveled to Peru in 1974 to participate in the World Congress of the International College of Surgeons.

In 1980 he was in Mexico at the XI Congress of the Latin American Society of Orthopedics and Traumatology, from which participation he submitted a meticulous written report. He was the delegate in Cuba of the International Society of Orthopedic Surgery and a member of the International Society of Surgery.

Honors
He received countless recognitions, diplomas, distinctions and medals of scientific and socio-political character, among which stand out:

Antonio Guiteras Medal
XX Anniversary Medal
Carlos J. Finlay Order
In 1981 he was awarded the title of Doctor in Sciences, presented in the Great Hall of the University of Havana.
Commemorative Coin XXX Anniversary Cuba - GDR (1995)

His multiple tasks as a physician, artist and revolutionary fighter were recognized with various distinctions and diplomas, including the Medal of Combatant of Column One, José Martí, which was presented to him by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz.
On September 26, 1999 he was awarded by ISCM-CH a diploma on the occasion of the commemoration of the 270th Anniversary of the Foundation of Medical Teaching in Cuba, as a deserved recognition of his long and fruitful trajectory in services rendered as:
Teacher, Medical Staff, Research and Revolutionary work in service of Higher Medical Education in Cuba.

Works

The scientific literature published by Dr. Julio Martínez comprises somewhat more than fifty monographs and articles published in national and foreign journals. The most important works are:
Doctors in the Sierra Maestra (historical notes) (1959)
Account of Commander Julio Martínez Páez (1982)
A Doctor in the Sierra (1990)
Notions of Orthopedics and Traumatology, Volumes I and II (1971)
Monograph on experiences obtained in the last 50 patients operated on for intervertebral disc nucleus hernia.
His work on the technique of Pectus excavatum received mention in the Contest for the Best Annual Scientific Work awarded by the Minister of Public Health. Among his modifications to other techniques are: Wilson's, for the fifth toe transfer; Bankart's, for recurrent shoulder dislocation and Lapidus', regarding the elimination of Hallux valgus.
He translated the book Anatomy and Ballet by Celia Sparger for the benefit of Ballet development in Cuba.

Love for the Arts

Despite his busy life as a physician, professor and health director, in addition to being a political activist, he always found time to continue cultivating his sensitive spirit, which allowed him to enjoy the beauty of nature, the plastic arts, ballet, architecture and music, not only as an enthusiast but as a performer.

It could be assured that he enjoyed painting a sunset or performing Ludwig van Beethoven just as much as the smile of a happy mother because her son recovered the ability to walk after a difficult surgical operation and long convalescence under his strict supervision as attending physician.

Source: Ecured