Zembala, Marian

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HISTORY OF CARDIOLOGYCardiology Journal2012, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 110–11210.5603/CJ.2012.0020Copyright © 2012 Via MedicaISSN 1897–5593110 www.cardiologyjournal.orgProfessor Zbigniew Religa (1938–2009).An outstanding cardiac surgeon.Director, Chancellor, Member of Parliament,Senator, and Minister“In order to ignite enthusiasm in others, you yourself must be burning with it…”He was born on 16 December 1938in Miedniewice, a district of GrodziskMazowiecki (today Żyrardów), to a fami-ly of teachers. He obtained his GeneralCertificate of Secondary School in 1956from the Limanowski Secondary Schoolin Warsaw. From 1956 to 1963, he stu-died Medicine at the Warsaw MedicalAcademy. Following his military servicein 1966 he started work at the Wolski Hospital inWarsaw, where under the supervision of AssociateProfessor Wacław Sitkowski he specialized in gene-ral surgery and where he remained until 1980.In 1973, he obtained his doctoral degree, witha thesis on: ‘Reactive hyperemia in coronary circu-lation with myocardial contractility in conditionsof assisted circulation in dogs’. He then passedthe ECFMG exam (Educational Commission forForeign Medical Graduates) and was granteda scholar-ship at Mercy Hospital in New York. In1975 and 1976, he was a resident at the SinaiHospital in Detroit, where under the supervisionof Dr A. Kantrowitz and Dr G. Wesołowski, hegained experience in the field of modern cardiacand vascular surgery.In 1980, he transferred to the II Clinic of Car-diac Surgery at the Cardiac Surgery Institute inWarsaw run by Prof. Wacław Sitkowski, a distin-guished pioneer in Polish cardiac surgery. In 1981,he earned his post-doctoral qualification and re-turned to the USA to train in cardiac surgery at theDeborah Heart and Lung Center in New Jersey. In1983, he was nominated Assistant Professor at theCardiology Institute in Warsaw.In 1984, of his own initiative, he moved toZabrze, where he won the position of Head of theFaculty and Clinic of Cardiac Surgery, at the Sile-sian Medical Academy. The followingyear, on 15 August, at the new center, theRegional Center of Cardiology in Zabrze(now known as the Silesian Center forHeart Diseases), he initiated a moderncardiac surgery program. 15 August sawhim conduct the first operation with thepersonal participation of Prof. WacławSitkowski, the guest of honor who per-formed the surgery. Less than three months later,on 5 November 1985, with a new team, ZbigniewReliga performed the first successful heart trans-plant. In 1995, he received the title of AssociateProfessor at the Medical University of Silesia, andin 1997 the title of full Professor.He ran and dynamically developed the ZabrzeCenter for 15 years, i.e. until 30 September 1999.In 1987, he performed the first heterotopic hearttransplant in Poland in a patient with cardiac failureand pulmonary hypertension. In the same year, onReliga’s initiative, a heart and lung transplantationwas attempted, and xenotransplantation of a pigheart into a human was performed. It was only thesecond clinical experiment of this type made withthe approval of the Ethical Committee in Europe,the first being a surgery carried out by the famousheart surgeon M. Yacoub from the United Kingdom.The procedure was preceded by more than a year’spreparations and experimental studies carried outtogether with Prof. A. Alexander from Brussels, andbiologists, Prof. J. Czaplicki and Prof. B. Błońskafrom the Medical University of Silesia.With the support of Prof. Religa, Zabrze’s car-diac surgeons actively participated in the angioplas-ty in fresh myocardial infarction program initiatedby Prof. Stanisław Pasyk in Zabrze in 1985. Theytook part in surgical revascularization in fresh myo-111Marian Zembala, Professor Zbigniew Religa (1938–2009)www.cardiologyjournal.orgcardial infarction with the involvement of the trunk,also in the most difficult patients with cardiogenicshock, obtaining good results.In 1988, thanks to the efforts of Prof. Religa,the lecturers at the International Congress of Car-dio-Thoraco-Vascular Surgery in Katowice wereprofessors who were then world leaders in cardiacsurgery: Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes (New Zealand),Donald Ross (United Kingdom), Ronald Hetzer(Germany), Gerald Buckberg (USA), Walt Angel(USA), L. Gonzalez-Lavin (USA), Bruno Messmer(Germany), Freddy Vermeulen (Holland), JohnBailey (United Kingdom), Daniel Walther (Belgium),Francis Hitchcock (Holland), Andree Moulert(Holland), and many others.Between 1985 and 1999, under the guidance ofProf. Religa, the Zabrze center, with the active par-ticipation of its students and employees, enrichedPolish cardiac surgery by new, previously unknownin Poland, solutions, such as arterial revasculariza-tion with the introduction of both thoracic arteries(1987), the inferior epigastric artery (1992) and theradial artery (1995) in the treatment of ischemicheart disease.Blood cardioplegia was introduced in 1988 andadditionally administered into the coronary sinus incoronary and valve defect surgery. New in Polandtreatment methods of paroxysmal ventricular tachy-cardia were developed, together with intraoperativemapping and new methods of autooxygenation us-ing the patient’s own lungs. In 1993, for the firsttime in Poland, in Zabrze, pulmonary thromboen-darterectomy was carried out in chronic pulmonaryvenous thromboembolism.In collaboration with world-leading surgeons andcardiac surgeons, new pioneering treatment me-thods were introduced in Zabrze. In 1993, Dr StuartJamieson of the University of San Diego performedin Zabrze the pulmonary thromboendarterectomy.Dr J. Chachques carried out the first cardiomyoplas-ty using the latissimus dorsi to support the work ofthe failing heart, while Randal Batista from Brazilperformed in Zabrze a reduction ventriculoplasty.Poland’s first implantation of a stentless aorticvalve was performed in 1998 in a 75 year-old pa-tient by S. Westaby from the University of Oxford.The first implantation of prototype stent grafts ofthe center’s own production was carried out in 1998in Zabrze by Prof K. Lauterjung from Munich, Ger-many in patients with thoracic aortic aneurysm. In1999, Dr Kit Arom from the University of Minnea-polis conducted the first minimally invasive mitralvalve implantation, thereby starting the program ofminimally invasive mitral valve surgery in Zabrze.Prof. Religa’s students and alumni have createdand developed modern cardiac surgery units in Po-land: Marian Zembala with Piotr Knapik, RomanPrzybylski, Jerzy Pacholewicz, Bogdan Ryfiński,Bronisław Czech, and Jacek Wojarski in Zabrze;Andrzej Bochenek, Stanisław Woś, RyszardBachowski, and Tadeusz Ceglarek in Zabrze andKatowice-Ochojec; Jacek Moll in Zabrze and Łódź;Janusz Skalski in Zabrze and Kraków; MichałWojtalik in Zabrze and Poznań; Bronisław Czech,Jacek Wojarski and Ewa Kucewicz in Zabrze andBiałystok, Tadeusz Gburek in Zabrze and Zamość;Jacek Skiba, Witold Gwóźdź and Roman Cichoń inZabrze and Wrocław; Jacek Kaperczak and JanBorzymowski in Zabrze and Opole; and IreneuszHaponiuk in Gdańsk.In 1987, Prof. Religa initiated an educational aidprogram in the field of modern cardiac surgery andcardiology, training doctors from Ukraine and Geor-gia. Today, this is the largest Polish professionaltraining aid program in cardiovascular diseases, andincludes 22 cardiology and cardiac surgery centers,not only in Ukraine and Russia, but also Cyprus,Kosovo and Slovakia.Due to Zbigniew Religa’s special interest inmechanical circulatory assistance, in 1986 the Clinicin Zabrze began co-operation with the then reco-gnized and accessible to us international medicalcenters in Brno, Czechoslovakia and Moscow,USSR. As a result of this international collaborationof teams led by Prof. Religa with foreign partnersincluding professors Jaromir Vasku and StefanCzerny from Brno and Sergey Shumakow fromMoscow, the first clinical implantation of Czech pneu-matic left ventricular assist pumps was performedin Zabrze: BRNO-VAD (1986) and BRNO-TAH(1987). The POL-VAD (1993) and POL-TAH (1996)Polish pumps assisting the failing were an originalachievement and a personal success of ZbigniewReliga and his team of cardiac surgeons and bioengi-neers (R. Curator, Z. Nawrat, P. Wilczek) in Zabrze.In 1992–1995, Zbigniew Religa was an adviserto the President of Poland, Lech Wałęsa. At thesame time, he continued to supervise work on thePolish artificial heart. In 1991, together with Dr. JanSarna and Silesian cardiac surgeons and bioengi-neers, he created the Foundation for Cardiac Sur-gery Development. The Foundation’s objectives arethe implementation of new technologies into clini-cal practice, scientific research, and a training andscholarship program for Polish and foreign medicalpersonnel.In 1993, Zbigniew Religa became Director ofthe Institute of Heart Prosthesis of the Foundation112Cardiology Journal 2012, Vol. 19, No. 1www.cardiologyjournal.orgfor Cardiac Surgery Development. He was a mem-ber of the Scientific Council (1992) and the NationalCouncil of Transplantation (1993) at the Ministryof Health.Also in 1993, at the personal request of Presi-dent Wałęsa, he ran for the Senate and won a man-date for the 1993–1997 term.Beside active participation in the country’spolitical life, he was also the Vice Chancellor of theSilesian Medical Academy from 1996 to 1999. In1999, after returning to Warsaw from Zabrze, he wasinvited to run the Central Clinical Hospital in War-saw, where he launched the first heart transplantprogram in the capital. In 2000, he became involvedin the realization of a scientific grant aiming to cre-ate a prototype of a Polish cardiosurgical robot.From 2001, he ran the II Clinic of Cardiac Sur-gery and was Director of the Institute of Cardiologyin Warsaw-Anin. During that time, he was re-elect-ed to the Senate (2001–2005). He participated innumerous official foreign delegations of the Polishparliament. In 1998–2001, he was national expert incardiac surgery. From 2005 to 2007, he was Minis-ter of Health in the governments of first KazimierzMarcinkiewicz, and then Jarosław Kaczyński.Professor Religa authored more than 160 ori-ginal scientific papers and books, including ‘Outlineof Cardiac Surgery’ (1987) and ‘Pediatric CardiacSurgery’ (2003). He was the initiator and executorof scientific research programs on the clinical useof the artificial heart, and the creation of a Polishbiological valve and a prototype artificial heart.His contribution to the development of inter-national scientific contacts was outstanding. Hemaintained active co-operation with renowned for-eign centers, such as the Transplantation Institutein Cambridge (United Kingdom), Cardiology Clinicin San Diego (USA), the Favaloro Foundation inArgentina, the Academy of Medical Sciences inGeorgia, the Medical University of Lvov (Ukraine),the National Institute of Cardiology in Mexico, andthe Institute of Transplantation and Artificial Or-gans in Moscow (Russia).He was a member of many scientific societies,including: the European Society for Cardiovascu-lar Surgery, International Society for Heart andLung Transplantation, European Association forCardio-Thoracic Surgeons, the European Society ofArtificial Organs, the American College of Angiolo-gy, the Association of Polish Surgeons, the PolishCardiac Society and the Polish Society of Trans-plantology. He was invited to deliver more than100 papers at international congresses and scien-tific meetings.For his outstanding and pioneering work in thefield of cardiac surgery and transplantation, he wasawarded the highest national honors, including theCommander’s Cross with Star of the Order ofPolonia Restituta (1995), the Grand Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta (1998), and the Order ofthe White Eagle (2009).He was Doctor Honoris Causa of five univer-sities: the Medical University of Lvov (1997), theBiałystok Medical Academy (1998), the MedicalUniversity of Silesia (2000), the University of Opole(2002) and the Medical University of Warsaw(2004).He received the first degree award from theMinister of Health five times. His medals includ-ed: the Tadeusz Orłowski Medal of the Polish As-sociation of Surgeons, the Gloria Medicinae of thePolish Medical Association, the gold medal of theAssociation of Polish Physicians ‘Medicus’ in NewYork, the Alfred Jurzykowski award in New Yorkand the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Inno-vation, given by the Supreme Commission of Dis-tinctions of the Kingdom of Belgium. He was alsoawarded the Order of the Smile.His passions were fishing and supportingGórnik Zabrze, his favourite soccer team.He died of lung cancer on 8 March 2009 inWarsaw.Prof. Marian Zembala, MD, PhD, FESCChairman, Department of Cardiac Surgery and Transplantationof the Medical University of SilesiaDirector, Silesian Center for Heart Diseases in ZabrzePresident, European Society for Cardiovascular and Endovascular Surgery (2010–2012)ul. Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 9, 41–800 Zabrze, Polande-mail: M.Zembala@sccs.pl

Professor Zbigniew Religa (1938&#8211;2009). An outstanding cardiac surgeon. Director, Chancellor, Member of Parliament, Senator, and Minister

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Professor Zbigniew Religa (1938–2009). An outstanding cardiac surgeon. Director, Chancellor, Member of Parliament, Senator, and Minister

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Professor Zbigniew Religa (1938&#8211;2009). An outstanding cardiac surgeon. Director, Chancellor, Member of Parliament, Senator, and Minister

Abstract

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Via Medica Journals

Professor Zbigniew Religa (1938–2009). An outstanding cardiac surgeon. Director, Chancellor, Member of Parliament, Senator, and Minister