Liane Borbolla Vacher

Doctor Liane Borbolla Vacher, first woman to receive a Doctorate in Medical Sciences in Cuba.

Doctor Borbolla was born in the city of Manzanillo, her father was of Cuban nationality and her mother was French.

She completed her primary and secondary studies in France, but studied medicine in La Habana and graduated in 1949. She was the first woman to obtain the top ranking in her graduating class in that field. She was an external student, internal physician and resident at the "Hospital Universitario "General Calixto García".

Later, she became an adjunct and associate professor, serving as an honorary faculty member of the Pediatrics department at the "Reina Mercedes" Hospital in La Habana. There she won, through competitive examination, the position of Head of the Pediatrics Service, and began teaching Medical students and overseeing the training of residents.

She was appointed full professor of Pediatrics in 1961, and became one of four pediatricians designated to teach the specialty at the only Medical school that existed in the country.

In 1967, at the pediatric hospital "William Soler", she founded the first Cytogenetics laboratory in Cuba. At this center, where she worked for twenty-five years, she performed for the first time in Cuba the prenatal diagnosis of fetal sex through the study of sexual chromatin in amniotic fluid cells. In this service she provided more than 25,000 consultations, analyzed more than 7,500 dermatoglyphic studies and 6,000 karyotype examinations for chromosome identification in children.

On two different occasions she completed postgraduate studies in Paris (1968 and 1980). Subsequently, also in Montreal, Canada.

She created the first Medical Genetics consultation clinic in Cuba. She remained linked to teaching until her death, which occurred in Mexico on August 5, 1993, while participating in the World Anthropology Congress where she was being honored for her contribution to the development of dermatoglyphics study in humans.

She participated in more than 50 national and international congresses, published more than 150 scientific papers in national and foreign journals, and was the author of several texts on Pediatrics and Medical Genetics. Active member of several scientific societies: Cuban Society of Pediatrics, Cuban Society of Genetics, Jalisco Society of Human Genetics, and the Latin American Association of Pediatrics.

Doctor Borbolla was the first woman to receive the title of Doctor in Medical Sciences in Cuba. She was also the first, and to date the only woman, to have held the presidency of the Board of Directors of the Cuban Society of Pediatrics. For all this, she was granted the title of Honorary Member of this scientific society. She was founder of the Cuba-France Friendship Society, eventually holding the position of member in the bureau of its board. She received medals, commendations and other decorations for her successful professional life in clinical practice, academia and research. Among these are: Medal for the 250th Anniversary of the University of La Habana, "Pepito Tey" Medal, "Comandante Manuel Fajardo" Medal and "Frank País" Medal. Upon her death she was serving as head of the Genetics service at "William Soler" hospital.

She studied tirelessly, every day. She possessed great general culture, was an excellent reader of the classics and of the great works of universal literature. During weekends she frequented the cinema, the theater, attended concerts, opera and ballet performances; she expressed with eloquence her enthusiasm for the artistic mastery that she so enjoyed.

On one occasion when she agreed to be interviewed, something difficult given her great modesty, she said: "I have never aspired to anything more than being a doctor." Cuban doctors will always remember Doctor Liane Borbolla as a woman physically small, but immense in spirit. She was a teacher of teachers, of refined culture, wise in knowledge, full of kindness and with a lofty ethics, unique in the practice of diagnostic discussion and in the art of delivering masterful lectures.