Roberto Luis Guerra Valdés

Son of Luis and Mercedes (from San Juan y Martínez, province of Pinar del Río), he was born in Havana, on Concordia Street No. 176.5. He completed his primary studies at the religious schools Hermanos de La Salle and Belén.

In 1933, at the fall of Machado, he joined the revolutionary military organization Pro Ley y Justicia. On June 30, 1937, he married Herminia Piedra and on November 10, 1937 he graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Science and Letters from the Institute of Secondary Education in Havana (Labor File No. 2013535).

While still a high school student, he could already read in English, so he spent entire hours enjoying readings of Plato, Darwin, Kant, Shakespeare and Marx.

He enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine in the 1937-1938 academic year and in his first 3 years of study he obtained outstanding grades in all subjects and, in addition, 8 ordinary awards. With this record he wins by competition a position as an internal student at the University Hospital "Calixto García".

Although because he was married he did not live in the Hospital, he was assigned a room in the dormitory at the far left, overlooking the University Stadium, where he spent hours studying the most varied medical texts and books such as Aequanimitas by Englishman William Osler and the History of Medicine by Swiss Henry E. Siegerist.

While studying in the fourth year of his degree, his son was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart disease, whom he named Roberto Luis. Despite the frustration, confusion and disruption this impact caused in his life, it did not prevent him from obtaining 10 outstanding grades in 10 subjects and 4 awards in that academic year (1940-1941).

In total, during his university studies he obtained outstanding grades in all subjects and 14 awards (University File No. 30148).

From 1944 to 1947 he wins by competition the position of Medical Intern. Already as a graduate, he intensified his training in Surgery in the "San Martín" Ward with Professor Vicente Banet.

From December 1945 to January 1946, he performed a substitute position at the American company Nikaro Nickel Company in Moa, province of Oriente.

On November 19, 1946 he is appointed Honorary Surgeon of the Hospital for the Mentally Ill in Rancho Boyeros (Labor File 2013535). In early 1947, his son's condition worsens and he dies on February 17 of that same year. In 1947 he wins by competitive examination the position of surgery resident, until 1948.

The suffering derived from his son's illness and death affected him emotionally in a substantial way, and without failing in his duties as a resident at "Calixto García" and at 33 years of age, he ventures socially with musicians, writers and artists (Benny Moré, Ernest Hemingway, Enrique Santiesteban, Ava Gardner).

In September 1948 he is appointed surgeon of the "La Benéfica" health clinic of the Galician Center in Havana.

In 1949 he publishes 2 articles in volumes No. 2 and 3 of the Revista Archivos del Hospital Universitario "Calixto García", Treatment of Esophageal Achalasia, together with Ignacio Macías Castro and Obstructive Jaundice with Salomón Mitrani Russo.

As a resident at "Calixto García" and surgeon at "La Benéfica", he performs countless interventions on the thyroid, lung, esophagus, liver, thoraco-abdominal sympathectomies for high blood pressure and surgery on the sympathetic nervous system in peripheral vascular diseases. He also performs interventions on arterio-venous fistulas and others.

He operates, for the first time in Cuba, a total colectomy with anastomosis of the terminal ileum to the anus (with preservation of the anal sphincter) in a 7-year-old girl admitted to the "Albertini" ward of "Calixto García" Hospital (Diario de la Marina, August 14, 1955).

He felt a preference for operating on mediastinal tumors. When these had relationships with the aortic arch or superior vena cava, he demonstrated audacity and skill in dissecting the tumor with the Metzenbaum scissors, and according to his assistants with the same naturalness with which he dissected a hernia sac.

In January 1950 he wins by competitive examination a position as Associate Professor in Surgical Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine.

On April 20, 1950 he presents a paper on radiological visualization of coronary arteries to the Society of Clinical Studies in Havana.

At the end of 1950 he travels to London to a Radiology Congress and presents a paper on aortography.

In 1951 he performs for the first time at "Calixto García" an abdominoperineal operation, using 2 surgical teams (abdomen and perineum) that substantially shortened operative time with these two teams.

In 1952 he teaches 2 postgraduate courses, one on vascular diseases and another on trauma at the Summer School of the University of Havana.

On February 6, 1954 he is promoted by advancement to Full Professor of Surgical Pathology, the golden summit to which all physicians of the era aspired, from the youngest to the oldest, who as associate and auxiliary professors hoped to reach full professor status before dying (Teaching File 24349005).

Upon being promoted to Full Professor, he became the youngest professor at the Faculty of Medicine.

As Full Professor, he became head of the Surgery service of the Fortún ward and also of the departments of Peripheral Vascular Diseases and Burns.

In 1955, he was president of the Board of Governors of "Calixto García" Hospital and Vice-Secretary of the National Medical Association.

Also a member of the Medical Advancement Commission. Vice-president of the Cuban Society of Angiology, and Executive of the Association of Alumni of "Calixto García" Hospital.

Member of the Cuban Society of Surgery, member of the Cuban Society of Cardiology, member of the Cuban Society of Gastroenterology, member of the Society of Clinical Studies in Havana, professor at the Summer School of the University of Havana and member of the Editorial Committee of the National Surgery Journal (Diario de la Marina, August 14, 1955).

Since the late 1930s, the ligation of a patent arterial duct had been performed in the city of Boston, and from then on, surgeons approached for the first time the treatment of congenital heart diseases (Gross RE, Hubbar JP. JAMA 1939;112: 729).

Years later, in 1945 an aortic coarctation was successfully operated on in Stockholm (Crafoord C, Nylin EJ. Thorac Surg 1945;14:347) and in the same year in Baltimore, the first pulmonary stenosis (Blalock A, Taussig HB. JAMA 1945;128:189).

In 1948 Harken in the United States of North America operates on the first mitral stenosis (Harken DE, Ellis LB, Ware PF, Norman LR N. Eng J Med 1948;239:301).

Heart operations initiated in Boston, Stockholm and Baltimore spread to other cities in Europe, North America and in Havana, before most cities in Latin America and the Caribbean, in the early 1950s; these interventions were performed by a small group of surgeons led by Antonio Rodríguez Díaz. One of them was Guerra (for his mastery of thoracic and vascular surgery), hence he is considered one of the pioneers of cardiac surgery in Cuba.

Roberto Guerra was of white complexion, rather tall stature, strong build, full head of hair and tortoiseshell glasses. The distal portion of his right index finger was completely deviated toward the thumb. When referring to this physical defect, he would point out smiling that it was of extraordinary value for operating on digital commissurotomies.

He dressed with sobriety and elegance, wore short-sleeved white undershirts (to avoid sweating through his shirt) and always carried a coat rack in his automobile to hang his clothes while operating.

Brilliant intellectually, reserved, orderly, with great mental agility, he had no material ambitions or social prejudices. Averse to diplomas, titles and medals, he considered that these honors caused more harm to those awarded them who had few merits or no merits, distancing them from what they really were in the society in which they lived, and he concluded... "because in life we are what we are".

When he operated, with intelligence and skill, he imparted great speed to the different surgical stages, but the most outstanding characteristic within the operating room was the certainty he demonstrated in each decision he made.

He guided his students to form the main nucleus of their knowledge in the classic texts of surgery and then to complete them with the reading of journals. Since the best ones were written in English, they had to learn to read in this language.

As a professor, he was distinguished by the brevity and depth of what he presented in his classes, based fundamentally on knowledge demonstrated in practice.

His arguments could rarely be refuted at congresses or in scientific discussions in which he participated, due to his knowledge, eloquence and mental agility. When he argued them, he did so by partially moving both arms in unison up and down.

His preferred drink was whisky, for food shellfish and chocolate ice cream.

His great friend was José A Presno and his hobby was reading, and to a lesser extent popular music.

He always enjoyed great sympathy among both his students and those who were not, and everyone without exception addressed him as "usted" (formal you). This set of generic traits gave him a special capacity to conduct and direct numerous students who saw in him the teacher they aspired to be.

Some of his main students in his early years were Oscar Sánchez Beltrán, Ramón Díaz Arrastía, Guillermo Hernández Amador, Vicente Osorio Acosta, Eugenio Selman-Houssein Abdo and others.

In addition to being a professor of surgical pathology and surgeon at "La Benéfica", he had a small practice in the house where he lived at 18th Street No. 258 between 17th and 19th, Vedado.

Due to his scientific prestige and command of English, he had some clients among the American colony residing in Havana. Years later, he would recall, with a mischievous smile, that one of those patients had been Meyer Lansky (the gambling czar), a North American of Jewish origin who controlled the main casinos on the Island.

When some of these foreigners required surgical treatment, he operated on them at the Anglo-America clinic at 2nd Street No. 352, corner of 15th in Vedado.

In 1952 Du Bost operates for the first time in Lyon, France on an abdominal aortic aneurysm, using a homograft (Du Bost C Ama Arch Surg 1952;64:405). This type of surgery reaches its maximum development in the city of Houston in Texas, with surgeon Michael De Bakey who later introduces Dacron as a prosthesis (Crawford ES, De Bakey ME Ama Arch Surg 1958;76:261).

At "Calixto García", Roberto Guerra had the responsibility of caring for patients with peripheral vascular diseases admitted to the Fortún ward, and taught courses on these. He performed aortographies through retrograde catheterizations of the femoral artery, and performed operations on the sympathetic nervous system (for the treatment of vascular diseases) and performed numerous interventions on arterio-venous fistulas.

A great proponent of experimental surgery and motivated by vascular surgery, he began attending the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Havana to operate on dogs, where he spent entire hours using the most varied prostheses for this type of surgery.

From 1953 on, vascular diseases received special attention at "Lila Hidalgo" Hospital in Rancho Boyeros. Different surgeons from Havana, including Guerra, attended this center in order to acquire experience and develop vascular surgery. At this hospital he meets Manuel Fuentes, a medical student who kept photographic records of his interventions and who later in the 1960s would become his great student and collaborator, along with Roberto Menchaca and Justo Piñeiro.

In 1956 significant scientific and political events occurred in Cuba. From January 20 to 27, the V Pan-American Congress of Gastroenterology and the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of Gastroenterology were held. Laureano Falla presided over the event and it was held at the Casa de la Cultura on G and 3rd Streets in Vedado.

The best gastroenterologists in the world attended and a new definition for hepatic cirrhosis was developed.

From Cuba, Pedro Castillo, P. Iglesias Betancourt, Rogelio Lavín and gastroenterologists Laureano Falla and Fernando Milanés participated. From the United States of North America came H.L. Bockus, H. Hopper and from England S. Sherllock attended.

There was great participation from our surgeons with R. Núñez Portuondo, José Lastra, A. Rodríguez Díaz, Vicente Banet, Manuel Huergo Pino, J. A. Presno and A. Núñez Núñez.

Vascular surgery experienced a significant advance this year with the creation of an Artery Bank at "Lila Hidalgo" Hospital and with the first abdominal aortic aneurysm operation performed by Roberto Guerra using a plastic material called Ivalon.

Shortly thereafter, Manuel Huergo Pino at "Carlos J. Finlay" Hospital operates on the second case, using a cadaver artery.

In the month of November, at the Blanquita theater at 1st and 10th Miramar, 2 scientific events take place, the 3rd Latin American Congress of Angiology (November 8-11) and the 5th International Congress of Cardiology (November 11-15).

Numerous cardiologists and surgeons from Latin America attend. From Houston, Texas, comes De Bakey. Our experiences in cardiovascular surgeries were presented by Antonio Rodríguez Díaz, Armando Núñez Núñez, Hilario Anido Fragulo, Angel Giral Casielles and Roberto Guerra.

From a political point of view, the situation had worsened noticeably; on November 28, the University of Havana is closed and shortly after armed struggle begins in the province of Oriente.

With the closure of the University, a large percentage of medical students from the interior left for their provinces, others with economic resources traveled to Spain or the Dominican Republic to continue their studies, some went fully into the insurrectional struggle and others, mostly residents of Havana, continued attending "Calixto García".

In the Fortún Ward Service, doctors and students who had obtained positions by competition and competitive examination continued working.

On March 13, 1957, Guillermo Hernández Amador, Guerra's student and doctor of the Fortún Ward, attends to Ricardo Olmedo, wounded in the assault on the Presidential Palace, and vigorously opposes handing him over when the authorities attempt to transfer him to another hospital.

Guerra, like most of the Medical faculty, maintained his opposition to the regime established since 1952. As a member of the National Medical Association's Secretariat, he had participated in all complaints filed against it. As president of the Board of Governors of "Calixto García" Hospital, he had confronted violations of university autonomy and intervened on behalf of wounded or clandestine students. When the Civic Resistance movement was created, he joined it.

On April 9, 1958, student Carlos Macau Cossío of the Fortún Ward, a Catholic activist and member of the July 26 movement, who was being sought by police in Matanzas and was under the protection of Professor Guerra, died in the actions of that day.

When the course resumed in 1959, the Faculty of Professors of the School of Medicine had 161 professors among associate, auxiliary and full professors, of which 39 were full professors, five of whom besides Guerra were general surgeons (R. Núñez Portuondo, Amador Guerra, Rafael Menocal, Francisco Leza and Elpidio Stincer), in their majority with limitations for chronological reasons, Guerra was in better conditions than anyone to continue harvesting the chain of personal triumphs he had begun when he enrolled in medicine in 1937, as he was only 45 years old.

But stripped of material ambitions and without any social prejudices, he preferred to dedicate his talent and energy to developing social medicine, to provide medical care to thousands of humble and defenseless sick people scattered throughout the island. To transform medical education and extend it to the rest of the island to graduate a greater number of higher quality physicians. To support and protect those towns that needed help to satisfy the purest of human feelings. To lay the foundations of experimental surgery to advance surgery in Cuba.

In mid-1959 he closes his 19th Street practice, donates his furniture and equipment to the hospital and moves to 17th Street No. 355, apt 7 in Vedado.

In the month of September he attends a Medical Education Congress held in Chicago. In the month of December he attends the 6th Pan-American Medical Congress in Buenos Aires.

On January 31, 1960 he resigns his position as surgeon at "La Benéfica" and on February 15 of the same year, he is appointed coordinator of the rural medical service and assigned an office at Belascoaín Street No. 710 in the old Ministry of Health and Social Assistance. There he spends hours working in order to place the first 318 doctors in the regions with the worst existing communications (A. Rodríguez Rivera in "Hocico del caimán", 1978).

In May 1960, when Chile suffers intense earthquakes and tsunamis, he is one of the doctors who assists in helping the wounded (Salvador Allende, notebook 72 of History of Public Health, 1978). In August 1960, when there is an exodus of professors from the medical faculty, he and Presno lead the few who remained in the faculty, until a new one was established.

At the end of 1960 he is appointed dean of the Faculty of Medicine, a position he holds until 1963. As dean, when the new faculty was organized, the different members of it were asked for a list of their teaching activities in order to officially accredit them as professors. Everyone knew that Guerra had been notoriously known as a professor since 1950 and that he held the position of dean, but despite that he was also asked for the document.

Annoyed with such a requirement, he explained to the circumspect professor that he considered it unnecessary in his case, but when the latter insisted, he responded as follows: "Doctor, in past years when you walked through the Columbus neighborhood and some of those poor girls full of makeup, with light clothes, in the dim light of a red light, whistled at them, they did not need to show you a diploma of their profession since they were one by virtue of notoriety."

In April 1961, when the military landing occurs at the Bay of Pigs, he is mobilized by the direction of the Medical Services of the FAR to provide his services at "Calixto García" hospital, where he remains until the first days of May.

At the end of 1961 he is appointed head of the Surgery Service at "Manuel Fajardo" hospital, a position he nominally held until 1972.

In the first semester of 1962, he attends a cardiology congress in Mexico City and in the same semester, as head of the general surgery service, he introduced as the first activity of the day the shift handover. With this type of lightning meeting lasting 5 to 10 minutes, the collective was informed of what happened the previous day and the activities for the day that was beginning were planned. This type of meeting was later practiced in other surgery services in Havana. At first it was a subject of mockery for some who called it "the little school", "the mass". Later it spread to the rest of the surgery services in the country and then to the rest of the specialties and today this meeting introduced by Guerra initiates medical activities throughout the island.

In the month of October 1962, during the Crisis, he remains mobilized under the command of the army of Oriente until the missiles are withdrawn from the island.

From 1962 to 1965 he was, along with José A. Presno, one of the pillars that the Department of Surgery of the Faculty of Medicine relied on to maintain its integrity when an attempt was made to create a new model for teaching postgraduate general surgery.

In 1963 his duties as dean cease and he is appointed head of the department of surgery of the medical faculty and in the month of January he is the first professor to move to Santiago de Cuba to extend teaching to that city in the so-called "Plan Santiago". He stays in Punta Gorda and elevates the status of surgery at the Provincial Hospital "Saturnino Lora" and at the Military "Castillo Duany". There he performs the first esophagocoloplasty ever performed in Santiago de Cuba.

In April 1964 he attends a surgery congress in Montevideo and from November 15-21 another in Mexico City.

When he was diagnosed with gallstones, he told a friend: "I have to have my gallbladder operated on, and since I cannot do it myself, I will have to find a surgeon to operate on me the way I would have done it." He was admitted to the "Joaquín Albarrán" Clinical Surgical Hospital and Eugenio Selman operated on him.

In September 1965 he attends Rome as a Cuban delegate to the Congress of the Societe Internationale de Chirugie.

In December 1965 he is the first Cuban doctor to travel to Vietnam in order to gather experience on trauma and burns caused by aerial bombardment.

In 1966 he begins studying French and attending the Alianza Francesa located just a few steps from his house. From November 1966 to June 1967 he provides valuable cooperation in Algeria after its liberation as a professor at the University Hospital in Oran.

On October 25, 26, 27 and 28, 1968, he actively participates in the discussion held to develop the National Surgery Standards with all surgeons from Cuba.

From the beginning of the 1960s, the residency system was organized, ending with an oral exam before a State Board. Given his prestige and experience, he served as a member or president of these state exams. He was characterized by his punctuality and his understanding and sometimes his indulgence toward the resident taking their final exam.

Five or 10 minutes before the exam began, he would arrive in his Peugeot 403, impeccably dressed in a white linen coat.

During the early years, questions to specialist candidates were posed without limit, as the professor conceived them during the exam. There were professors who sometimes made far-fetched questions either by error or to demonstrate erudition to the candidate or the audience, irritating Guerra when he was part of the board. Some anecdotes in this regard bear witness to his personality, for example, as a simple board member at evaluation time, privately, with irony and in a paternal tone he said: "Kid, what is the answer to the question you asked the boy that he didn't answer. Tell me because I don't know it either"; another would be when as president of the exam of a well-prepared military resident who had answered correctly, in one of the last questions he froze, and facing each situation that was posed he answered incorrectly the same thing: "I would operate on it"... "I would operate on it", so the person asking the question told him: and why would you operate on it?, the resident answered, because I'm a surgeon. Guerra as president of the board and wanting to help the resident asked him, "because you're a surgeon, do you operate on a cold? No professor, then move on to another question."

On another occasion, also as president, a resident was being examined whose thesis was on trauma. From the start of the exam, the resident, with great nervousness, left much to be desired in the answers he was giving. Then someone asked him about the clinical manifestations of cardiac tamponade and finally, with this question, the resident answered firmly and correctly. Then a board member, wanting to dig deeper, asked "and what is the ECG result?" Guerra stopped the author of this question cold, telling him: "Professor, the titles we award are for a specialist, not a genius".

In 1967, along with Presno, he works hard with the files of 347 doctors who practiced throughout the island as general surgeons in order to grant them, according to their records, the title of specialist of 1st and 2nd degree in General Surgery.

He is a member of the Editorial Committee of the Surgery Book for Medical Students whose volumes were published in 1967, 1973 and 1976.

In 1967 he works on the Comprehensive Medicine Plan that would go into effect in 1968 in all Faculties of Medicine.

In 1969 he is also a member of the Editorial Committee of the 2 volumes of Surgery by Guerra and in 1969 editor member of the Surgery standards.

On April 9, 1972, he is appointed Head of the Department of Experimental Surgery and Transplant, located in Victoria de Girón and belonging to the ICMH.

After having opposed, rightly or not, filling his Curriculum Vitae in the mid-1970s, he is asked for a new curriculum to elevate his proposition and make him a Doctor of Medical Sciences by direct means. When the deadline expires and he does not deliver the document, Presno makes the decision to do it with the data that Guerra offers him.

During the 1970s he traveled representing Cuba to Warsaw, Prague, Paris and Dublin. To congresses at the European Society For Surgical Research.

In early 1978, when he suspected he had cancer, he sought out urologist Vicente Osorio to care for him, asking him above all not to try to deceive him; with the diagnosis confirmed, he reacted courageously to the disease and supported by his intellect rationalized it to make it compatible with a peaceful and essentially normal life. Only from then on did he begin to visit his elderly mother on 10th and 3rd Streets in the Sierra neighborhood practically daily.

He continues attending Experimental Surgery in Victoria de Girón, "Manuel Fajardo" Hospital, some scientific sessions and even the beach and certain social activities when he felt well.

On February 23, 1979, at a joint session of the Cuban Societies of Surgery and Oncology, he chaired a Panel on Esophageal Cancer. In making the conclusions of this panel, he amazed those present by saying: "Although esophageal cancer is very serious, I will not die from it because another location has been assigned to me."

At a party on 6th Street between 5th and 7th Miramar, he found an old friend from "Calixto García" Hospital and, remaining apart with him from the noise, told him: "You know I'm ill, but Herminita is not and I have no right to prevent her from having fun, but when I feel good like today, I have fun too". Of Guerra, the poet could say:... He saw death arrive and spoke to it as an equal...

He was tutor of the thesis of resident Félix Duarte on experimental autotransplant of the lung. On the eve of the exam, the resident appeared anxious about the exam's proximity and the tutor's health, until Guerra reassured him saying: "Duarte, don't worry anymore about your exam, I will be alive by then." This resident years later successfully operated on the first lung transplant in Cuba (Granma, February 7, 1989).

During the year 1979 he spent hours in his 17th Street apartment talking about Algeria with Jorge Selguera; about scholarships with José Rebellón; about Economics with his patient Regino Boti; and about telecommunications with José Altschuler. Remembering the past of surgery, speaking about the present and planning the future with Eugenio Selman who always made time to brighten the life of the sick person with his presence, or with his student and friend Vicente Osorio, who answered all the questions he asked him about his illness.

When he was alone, he spent hours in his single bed reading Sinuhe the Egyptian by Finn Milka Waltari, the Autobiography of Ferdinand Sauerbruch, or The Naked Ape by Englishman Desmond Morris, The American Challenge by Schriver, the Time magazine or the Le Monde newspaper.

In his last months, the books he most sought out to read dealt with German militarism or Italian-American mafia.

The morning of Tuesday, August 21, 1979, dawned warm with the sun typical of the month, he felt well physically and did not want to waste the opportunity that nature offered him, he put on shorts and went down with his wife to the basement, got into his green Fiat 125 and headed to Santa María del Mar. He enjoyed a prolonged and refreshing sea bath. On the way back he napped and shortly after having eaten, he lay down to sleep after having spent a happy day. In the early morning hours, a chest pain wakes him caused by acute coronary thrombosis that barely gave him time to say goodbye to his wife. Three months ago he had turned 65.

Charismatic, elegant and multifaceted, he could be seen changing his external appearance in the most varied circumstances. In shirt sleeves at "Calixto García" reading a surgery text or The Mediocre Man by Argentine José Ingenieros. In the forties and fifties, with cap and green coat in the surgical units of "La Benéfica" or the Anglo-America Clinic. In linen guayabera at the popular Floridita Bar on Obispo 557, corner of Monserrate, or in raw drill dressed as a farmer with a Panama hat at the luxurious Tally Ho at J. 501 corner 23, Vedado. In the summer months, submerged in swimming trunks in the National Hotel pool or sunbathing in Varadero or Santa María del Mar. In English muslin at the rustic Ali Bar, where Benny More called him padrino, at the central Montmatre with his friend Pedro Vargas or sharing a table at the famous Tropicana Cabaret with Nat King Cole, in February 1957. In Blue Blazer representing Cuba scientifically in Buenos Aires or Dublin, or elegantly dressed in a tuxedo on December 31st at the Havana Yacht Club in Miramar or the Presidential Palace in Mexico City.

He could also be seen in the 1960s dressed in the gray uniform of the Rural Medical Service, while trying to place a postgraduate among the charcoal workers of the Ciénaga de Zapata or among the coffee growers in the mountains of Oriente.

In May 1960, in campaign attire flying in a helicopter over the areas devastated by the earthquake in Chile. In olive green uniform, in April of '61 at "Calixto García" hospital or in October 1962 in Punta Gorda in Santiago de Cuba. In December 1965, bundled up, landing stealthily on the outskirts of Hanoi or with a conical hat emotionally saying goodbye to Vietnamese soldiers.

Between the years 69 and 70 in a long coat, questioning in French sick Algerian patients at the Hospital in Oran, or in a white linen coat presiding over an examination board at "Enrique Cabrera" Hospital or witnessing Rodríguez Soleto in Victoria de Girón perform a lung transplant on a dog.

Finally, lying in his bed reading "Raise and fallen of III reich" or the life of Lucky Luciano.

Pioneer of cardiac and experimental surgery and father of vascular surgery, without whose mention it is almost impossible to write the history of teaching and medical care in Cuba for 20 years (1959-1979), by creating, advising, regulating or supervising, he was able to see before dying the fruit of his work. From the Rural Medical Service that he initiated as the first step of Social Medicine, followed others until medical care became accessible to all the sick throughout Cuba, and with it produce a decrease in infant mortality from 60 and more in 1959 to 19.4 in 1979 per thousand live births, and an increase in life expectancy from 61.8 in 1959 to 72.8 in 1979 (today mortality is 9.4 and life expectancy is 75.03).

From one Faculty of Medicine and 4 teaching hospitals, all located in Havana, in 1979 there were already 21 faculties of medicine and 249 teaching hospitals scattered throughout Cuba. The graduates, during his years as a professor of surgical pathology in 1953, 1954, 1955, of 302, 314 and 216 saw them increase, being head of experimental surgery in 1977, 1978 and 1979, to 1,105, 579 and 683. From 6,283 doctors that existed in 1959 in Cuba, he left 14,388 when he died (today 56,836).

He was able to see the end of the war in Vietnam in April 1975 and its unification.

Finally, his line of research was realized when the first lung transplants were performed in the 1980s.

Of his life, the Englishman Rudyard Kipling could say he fulfilled one of the maxims of his poem "If", because he filled every minute of his life with 60 seconds of activity.

Like every human being, he made many mistakes, like almost all of us, and faced death as all of us would like to face it.

Source: Revista Cubana de Cirugía