Rene Favaloro; Performed First Bypass Surgery

Rene Favaloro, 77, Argentine surgeon who pioneered coronary bypass surgery. In 1967, Favaloro performed the first bypass operation on a 51-year-old woman at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, using a saphenous vein taken from the patient’s leg to detour blood around blockages in her heart. The technique is now routinely performed on millions of people each year. Before Favaloro’s breakthrough, coronary heart disease had been treated only with medication. Favaloro spent a decade working in a number of U.S. medical centers, including the Cleveland Clinic, where he specialized in chest surgery. Then he returned to his native Argentina where he began his career as a humble rural doctor. After his return home, he applied his talents to the cardiological surgical foundation that bears his name. He had complained recently that the foundation, the most important in Latin America, was facing serious financial problems. Argentina has been in an economic depression since 1998, and Favaloro recently wrote a letter to the editor of La Nacion stating that several hospitals and state-owned medical centers owed the foundation more than $18 million. On Saturday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.