In mourning the legal medicine and Cuban science: Dr. Jorge González Pérez, Popi, has passed away

November 13, 2024

On this November 12th, the distinguished University Professor, Dr. C. Jorge González Pérez, Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana (UCMH) and Hero of Labor of the Republic of Cuba, passed away at the age of 72.

Dr. C. Jorge Caridad González Pérez was born on April 23, 1952, in the province of Matanzas. He graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in December 1975, and in September 1978 he began his residency in the specialty of Legal Medicine at the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences of Havana, which he completed in 1981.

In 1982 he began his doctorate in Medical Sciences in the field of legal medicine at the Institute of Legal Medicine and Criminalistics of "Karl Marx" University of Leipzig, Germany, obtaining the scientific degree of "Doctor in Medical Sciences" (PhD) on September 26, 1987.

He obtained the second degree of specialist in Legal Medicine in 1990. He held the main teaching category of Full Professor since 2002 and the Special Condition of Consultant Professor since 2018. He was selected as Full Member Academic of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba in 2006. In 2010 he was granted the lifetime category of Member Academic of Merit.

In his vast experience he accumulated 46 years of work as a professor of undergraduate and graduate studies.

Throughout his fruitful life and as part of his teaching work, he provided advisory services for more than a hundred scientific works, both student and professional projects. He conducted numerous scientific research in the forensic field, obtaining awards, mentions, and commendations. He served on and presided over examination boards of the specialty and other levels of training. He was a member of the Commission of Scientific Degrees in Health Sciences.

He was also the main coordinator of the International Disaster Workshop held in Cuba in 1994, sponsored by PAHO/WHO, and the principal author of the "Manual for the massive handling of fatal victims in disaster situations," which won the Annual Health Prize in 1994. He was founding president of the academic committee of the Master's degree in Health and Disasters of the National School of Public Health (ENSAP) and president of the Chair of Health Ethics, as well as a member of the Chair of Medical Law at ENSAP.

He promoted the development of International Humanitarian Law, with the support of the Cuban Red Cross, the International Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims (IRCT) of Denmark, and the Center for International Humanitarian Law of Havana.

He presented countless scientific works at various conferences and events, in the academic and professional fields, in medical, legal, anthropological, criminalistic, criminological, toxicological, bioethical, educational fields, among others, both nationally and internationally. In this regard, his work stood out as a member and secretary of the Organizing Committee of the International Congresses of Legal Medicine held in Havana in 1980, 1885, and 1989, and toxicology in 1988.

He was president of the Organizing Committee of the international congresses of legal ("forensic") medicine held in Cuba in 1993, 1997, 2000, and 2005; he also presided over and collaborated in the organization of the Cuban Days of Legal Medicine. He was a founding member of the Cuban Society of Legal Medicine (1978) in which he held various positions in its Board of Directors and served as its president for 27 years from 1990 to 2017. He was a founding member of the Cuban Society of Toxicology (1993), in which he was part of its first Board of Directors, and of the Cuban Society of Biological Anthropology (1997), of which he was an Honorary Member since 2001.

As part of the Academic Committee on Drugs of ISCM-H (2001), he was the founder and head of the CEDRO project, dedicated to research and prevention of drug addiction in the university setting (2002-2015).

He was secretary (1990-96) and vice-president (1996-98) of the Latin American Association of Legal Medicine and Medical Deontology and Ibero-American Association of Forensic Sciences, of which he was president from 2000 to 2017. Honorary Member of the Ecuadorian Society of Legal Medicine, Corresponding Member of the Mexican Society of Criminology and the Mexican Association of Legal Medicine; he was a Member of the International Academy of Legal Medicine and Social Medicine. In October 2000 in Guayaquil, Ecuador, at a scientific meeting of the Latin American Association of Legal Medicine, he received the "Prof. Ramón Fernández Pérez" Award for his contribution to legal medicine in the Americas region.

In 1990 he attended as an individual expert the VIII International United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Treatment of Offenders held in Havana, while in 1991 he traveled to Barbados heading a Cuban delegation to the Regional Symposium for the creation of the network of forensic toxicology laboratories in the Caribbean, convened by the United Nations Drug Division. He represented Cuba in 1991 at the Pastoral of Health Agents at the Vatican dedicated to the topic of drugs and alcohol. In 1994 he traveled to the headquarters of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington, USA, as an expert at the Inter-American Conference on "Society, Violence, and Health."

In 1981 he was incorporated as a member of the National Group of Legal Medicine, which advises the Minister of Public Health, where he served as secretary; he participated in the elaboration of the program for the development of the specialty of Legal Medicine until 2000, as well as the third Program of the Legal Medicine Residency.

Founding member of the National Commission of Toxicology of MINSAP (1988) of which he was secretary and vice-president, standing out in this science in its forensic branch. He was a member of the MINSAP Disaster Commission, as well as an advisor on this matter for the National General Staff of Civil Defense, of which he was part of its Scientific Council. In 1990 he was appointed expert of the National Committee for Disaster Reduction within the framework of the International Decade proclaimed by the United Nations for such purposes that year, and in 1994 he was appointed member of the National Council of the Cuban Red Cross as a disaster specialist. In this field he has participated in multiple events that have occurred in Cuba and abroad, especially those related to air disasters.

He is an expert in the investigation of mass railway and traffic accidents, collective poisonings, and other high-complexity events. He was secretary of the Provincial Commission of Medical Ethics of Ciudad de la Habana (1988-95), later becoming a member of the National Commission of Medical Ethics (1995-present). He was also president of the Commission for Analysis of Medical Responsibility of the Provincial Health Department of Havana (1989-2000), among other permanent or temporary working commissions, expert of ENSAP for the application of the PAHO instrument for measuring the performance of essential Public Health functions in Cuba (2001).

Founding professor of the Master's degree in Legal Medicine at the Christian University of Bolivia (UCEBOL), Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia (2001); founder and head of the "Tocororo" project, on the improvement of university management in Medical Sciences, ISCM-Havana (September 2001 to July 2002); founder and head of the "Magisterio" project, on the training of university educators, in collaboration with the Union of Universities of Latin America (UDUAL) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) (2002-2015); founder and head of the "University Health Center" project in Havana, designated by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, for the development of medical training from Primary Health Care (2004-2012).

During his tenure as Rector, he oversaw the development of the "Chinese Medical Sciences program," for the training of doctors and nurses for China in Cuba, (2004-2010); he was a promoter of the "Educational Technology" group at the University of Medical Sciences of Havana for the development of university television. By directive of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, the Medicine program was prepared in teleclass format in support of the "University Health Center" project (2004-2012).

Founding member of the Advisory Board of the Latin American Center for Disaster Medicine (CLAMED) of the Ministry of Public Health, founder of the "Manitoba" project, on the development of doctoral training in nursing in Cuba, in collaboration with the University of Manitoba, Canada, (2004-2011); member of the Academic Committee of MEDICC (May 2003-September 2018).

He was part of the academic group that directed research on the psychopedagogical, clinical, genetic, and social study of the population with mental retardation and other disabilities, in Cuba and extended to other countries in the region (Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Trinidad and Tobago) in the period 2003-2015, designated by our Commander in Chief. He contributed to the creation and development of the New Program for Training Latin American Doctors (NPFML), the increase in enrollment and the subsequent decentralization of the program of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) and its follow-up in the country, as well as the restart and increase from 2010 onwards of self-financed and agreement-financed training in Cuba, among other tasks.

In the same way, he was linked with specialized organs of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces related to expert or operative work, or to judicial investigation and its courts of justice, with which he maintained close working ties for more than 45 years.

He accomplished special tasks of great patriotic significance, among them his participation in the identification of victims of the invasion of Grenada in 1983, having directed the forensic part of "Operation Tribute" through which the mortal remains of more than two thousand Cuban internationalists who died in different parts of the world were repatriated to Cuba in 1989, directing the medical-legal actions carried out from Angola, Nicaragua, and Cuba, and also traveling to Mozambique to fulfill the assigned tasks.

In 1995 he was assigned the mission to travel to Bolivia as a representative of the family of Che Guevara and the rest of the Cuban guerrillas who died in the 1967 struggle, to join the search proceedings that were being initiated there by presidential order. In March 1996 he assumed the leadership of the Group of Experts created in Cuba to draw up a plan for the search of the 36 comrades who fell in Bolivia, as well as to direct the Group of Cuban Scientists that carried out the investigation on Bolivian soil that made possible the discovery and identification of the remains of the 31 guerrillas found, including Che Guevara and Tania the Guerrilla.

In a very special way, the mission stands out that Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz personally assigned to him on March 5, 2013, to travel to Venezuela to advise on the funeral honors for the death of President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías. Similarly, by designation of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, he traveled to Brazil in 2013 to participate in the exhumation and forensic investigation of the remains of former president Joao Goulart (Jango), as a representative of his family and as part of the expert work carried out by an international group of forensic experts to determine the causes of his death.

In 2017 he participated as a forensic expert in the medical-legal review of the remains of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (Father of the Nation) and Mariana Grajales (Mother of the Nation) in Santiago de Cuba, as they were transferred to another location in the "Santa Ifigenia" cemetery in that city. Likewise, he directed the forensic medical team that worked on the identification of the deceased in the unfortunate accident of the supertankers in Matanzas in August 1922.

He received among others the following recognitions and distinctions: "Distinction for Cuban Education," "Manuel Fajardo Rivero Distinction," "José Tey" Medal, "Frank País" Order of II and I degrees, Carlos J. Finlay Order. He holds the special teaching category of Emeritus Professor of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana. He was granted the Honorary Title of Hero of Labor of the Republic of Cuba and Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana.

Dr. Jorge González, Popi, as we affectionately called him, was a man of fine sensitivity, profound critic, investigator, teacher, revolutionary, and internationalist, values that have been the very expression of his extraordinary human quality. May our most sincere condolences and fraternal embrace be conveyed to his family and friends from all the administrators, professors, workers, and students of UCMH who will never forget him.