There are things that seem obvious but have had to happen to someone before. Coronary bypasses such as those practiced by cardiac surgeon Alberto Forteza to Juan Carlos I are one of them. It is logical to think that if the coronary arteries are blocked by plaques - on which there is no "certain science" at 100% of their origin - theirs is to circumvent the jam. That operation, practiced thousands of times a day in the world, has a father of fascinating life and tragic death: the Argentine René Favaloro . His contribution to life, avoiding heart attacks, is one of the most notable of the twentieth century but, as we are Hispanics, only those of us who are lucky to have met at home the pioneers of cardiac surgery know about him. In Anglo-Saxon countries, such characters would have badges, streets and would be guests of honor at official receptions, but the Hispanics of the last two centuries have not given us as an example people who prefer to do intense gymnastics with their neurons to improve the bodies , in this case the heart-motor of others.
When Alberto Forteza had the open chest of Juan Carlos I in front of him and prepared to make the three bridges, 52 years ago Favaloro had chosen the saphenous vein, in the legs, to perform the first one, in the US, at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio. Far away was his childhood in a humble neighborhood of La Plata, the afternoons in his father's carpentry, talks with his grandmother, to which he dedicated his doctoral thesis: "To my grandmother Cesárea, who taught me to see beauty even in a poor dry branch. " He was able to enter directly into a large hospital to be trained, but refused to sign an adhesion to the Government: he spent years as a rural doctor in one of the poorest areas of the country.
He marched to the US for a decade but in 1975 he returned to Argentina to build the Favaloro Foundation, in which more than 400 cardiac surgeons from all of Latin America were trained. In the late 1990s, in the nth economic crisis of his country, the Government owed the foundation a lot of money . At the beginning of the 21st century, he shot himself in the heart. The man who avoided so many heart attacks.
No one has invented the bridge that frees his country from tremendous cyclical crises but the surgical technique that should bear his name is practiced daily. In many cases, nothing has proved more effective, not even the stents that have been scrapped for the Emeritus. Or for so many Americans who ignore, like us, what Hispanics are capable of .
Despite our elites.
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