- Argentina - Portal público de noticias de la República Argentina.
It has been nine years since the death of René Favaloro, one of the most prestigious doctors of Argentina. He is recognized by the world on account of his achievements in medicine and the creation of the Bypass that saved millions of lives.
"At some time, during an academic gathering in the USA, I was introduced as a good man who continued to be a country doctor. Excuse me, but I think it is a good description. I hope to be remembered this way". He started his medical career in a small and poor village in the La Pampa province, where he not only cured diseases, but taught people basic hygiene to prevent them.
He was convinced that "dignity, equality, Christian piety, sacrifice, abnegation and self-effacement" were the basic tenets of a medical practice. With this conviction he went from La Pampa to the USA in the pursuit of his true vocation as an M.D.: the cardiovascular field.
In the USA he studied and worked hard until he felt he was ready to return to his country to teach and transmit all he had learned. In a farewell letter to the director of the Cleveland Clinic, Donald B. Effler, he wrote: "Once more fate has put a difficult task on my shoulder. I shall devote the last third of my life to start up a department of chest and cardiovascular surgery in Buenos Aires. Circumstances at this particular time tell me that I am the only one who has the possibility to do this. Apart from dispensing medical care, the department will be devoted to post-graduate education and to clinical research".
In 1971 he returned to Argentina and four years later he created the Favaloro Foundation with the espoused objective in mind. He had the satisfaction of giving a post-graduate specialized education to more than 450 residents from all parts of his country and of Latin America.
Twenty years later he founded the Instituto de Cardiología y Cirugía Cardiovascular de la Fundación Favaloro (the Favaloro Foundation’s institute of cardiology and cardiovascular surgery), the basic motto of which was "advanced technology at the service of a humane medicine".
On July 29 of the year 2000, 77 years old, after a long career as a physician and a university professor, he took his life by means of a gun shot to his heart in the midst of a deep personal depression. Nine years after his tragic death his foundation continues to work with the same devotion he had infused in each one of his co-workers.
René Favaloro proved that being Doctor is not a profession but a life choice
