Lyliam Díaz Fernández

She was born on February 24, 1933, studied primary education at a neighborhood school run by a teacher graduated in teacher training, did not attend secondary school, took an exam to enter high school at Instituto No.1 de la Habana, passing and becoming a Bachelor of Science in 1950, at only 17 years old.

She immediately enrolled in the School of Medicine located at that time on Calle 25 between J and I, in El Vedado, and completed her degree in May 1960. Starting in August of that same year, the Ministry of Public Health sent her as a physician with the Rural Social Service to the Hospital de Jovellanos and at that center she was put in charge of the children's ward, given that throughout her time as a medical student she worked alongside Professor Dr. Liana Borbolla.

In February 1961 she completed the rural social service, and as the specialty residency system began, she enrolled in the Pediatrics residency and started it on July 1, 1961 (when she aspired to this position she was already pregnant with her first child). She began her residency at the Teaching Pediatric Hospital "Pedro Borras Astorga" and finished it there in 1964. She had two more children.

She worked for a year afterward at that center as head of a gastroenteritis ward and in 1965 Professor Dr. José Jordán asked her to help the teaching pediatric hospital "Dr. Ángel Arturo Aballí Arellano" because a specialist and teacher physician like her had left the country, so she began working at that institution on July 1, 1965, and worked continuously there for 45 years.

Her work as an educator really began at the Hospital de Jovellanos since the administration asked her to help train future nursing auxiliaries and she accepted. During her residency, Professor Dr. Eliseo Prado proposed her as a faculty member and she passed all corresponding evaluations. She was appointed as an instructor in Pediatrics, and as such was part of examination panels and directed seminars, from 1963 onward.

When she began working at the hospital "Dr. Ángel Arturo Aballí Arellano", already as a first-degree specialist and instructor, she was appointed head of a gastroenteritis ward (ward 9), and was assigned work as a faculty member with lectures, seminars, evaluation panels for students, interns and residents. During the time she worked at that center, she completed all the requirements needed to obtain the title of second-degree specialist in Pediatrics (1980s) and the teaching ranks of assistant (1977), associate professor (1987) and full professor (1997), until she was finally appointed as consulting professor, a position she also held starting in 1997.

In 1987 she left for Ethiopia where she worked as an associate professor of Pediatrics at the Gima Faculty. She returned from there not only with the internationalist medal (which was presented to her by the Cuban ambassador in that country) but also with a letter of recognition from that faculty for the high quality of the work performed, signed by the dean, Dr. W Teclexion.

Dr. Lyliam Díaz dedicated her entire professional life to the practice of Pediatrics for 45 years, until her retirement.

She was a tutor and advisor for more than 30 residency completion projects, as well as numerous research projects, since 1970. She has published around a dozen scientific works in the Cuban Journal of Pediatrics and also had a publication in the PAHO Journal. She was one of the members of the team that drafted the first standards for the specialty throughout the country in 1970.

She has received numerous recognitions during her professional and academic life, including the Order for Labor Merit for exceeding work standards and cultural advancement, the Medal for Internationalist Work (1988), the Piti Fajardo Order (1989), the Pepito Tey Order (1992), the Frank País Order (1995), and the Distinction for the XX Anniversary of ISCM-H in 1998.

Since 1962 she began participating in national congresses of the specialty where she has presented results from various research projects. At the institutional level, she participated in her base hospital in the work of different advisory committees such as pharmacotherapy, labor activities, and scientific activities, which she also chaired. She attended several postgraduate courses including those in Clinical Genetics and Gastroenterology.

She has served on and chaired examination panels for undergraduate and graduate exams for more than three decades, as well as state panels for awarding the title of first-degree specialist in Pediatrics and teaching positions within the University of Medical Sciences of Havana.

The intense and very active medical and academic life of Professor Dr. Lyliam Díaz Fernández not only allows us to place her among our most celebrated pediatricians, but makes us feel her as a true paradigm for the current and future generations of Cuban pediatricians, for having always given all her wisdom, with great humility and perseverance, in both care and teaching activities in the treatment of the pediatric patient.