IN MEMORIAM

Liliana Rosa Grinfeld, MD

DRA. LILIANA ROSA GRINFELD

I first met Liliana in the early 1980s, when she vis-ited Dr. Cingolani at the Center for Cardiovascular Research in the School of Medicine of the National University of La Plata in order to organize a round table for the Argentine Society of Cardiology Con-gress of that year. I still recall how Liliana discussed different aspects of cardiac physiology, particularly the mechanisms of coronary flow regulation. At that time, I was certain –and I still am– that I had met not only a brilliant interventional cardiologist but also a person who made of scientific and academic medicine an important part of her professional life. Those outstanding features should not be a surprise for those who, for different reasons, know Liliana’s family history. Her father was Dr. David Grinfeld, a pioneer in vascular and cardiovascular surgery in Argentina, and Professor at the School of Medicine of the National University of La Plata. Furthermore, her uncle, Rafael Grinfeld, was a physicist and Director of the Physics Institute of La Plata. Thus, Liliana was a worthy heir of a family tradition that instilled in her the significance of scientific and intellectual knowledge since early childhood. Of course, that family history was reinforced and enhanced by pro-fessional training at an institution of international prestige –the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. But that

is the most well-known part of Liliana’s history, to-gether with her time as president of the Argentine Society of Cardiology and the Argentine Cardiology Foundation. Perhaps a less well-known part of her academic career is her PhD at the School of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires. An indisputable proof of the enthusiasm and responsibility with which Liliana took on her academic task is the Doctoral Thesis that she wrote and successfully defended orally with the highest grades, and whose data were published in a prestigious international scientific journal of the specialty. I shared unforgettable mo-ments with Liliana in many places, such as Clínica Olivos, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Clínica San Camilo, and even in our Cardiovascular Pathophysiology Institute at the School of Medicine. In all those places, she always conveyed the importance of scientific research and academic medicine to the new generations of physicians in general and inter-ventional cardiologists in particular. Naturally, those unforgettable moments were the starting point of a scientific collaboration and friendship bond that hon-ored me and lasted until she passed away..

Professor Ricardo J. Gelpi, MD^MTSAC

School of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires