A tribute to Euryclides de Jesus Zerbini, MD

Abstract

Zerbini was born in a modest home in the rural countryside of Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on May 17, 1912. Born prematurely, the infant Zerbini could fit into a shoebox. As he grew, he decided to take up medicine because of pressure from his father—an elementary school teacher of Italian origin but a naturalized Brazilian who wanted his five children to pursue high positions in life. Zerbini came to Sao Paulo in December 1929. He was 17 years old at the time and had graduated first in his class. Entrance into medical school required an examination; only the first 50 candidates were accepted. Zerbini ranked among the top 10. Alone in Sao Paulo, he knew no one well enough to share his joy of having been admitted into medical school at the University of Sao Paulo. At that time, the University enjoyed an excellent reputation, supported in part by the Rockefeller Foundation. Studying medicine in Sao Paulo was not inexpensive, even considering that tuition was free. Zerbini relieved his father’s financial burden by teaching chemistry, physics, and natural history during his first year of medical school. In 1933, Zerbini went to the “Sao Paulo Santa Casa de Misericordia,” one of the most fashionable teaching hospitals in Brazil, where he met the famous surgeon Alipio Correa Netto. Alipio had fought in the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in the Allied campaign in Italy and was the only non-American surgeon authorized to operate on American soldiers. In Alipio, Zerbini found a mentor and source of inspiration that would guide his entire career. Circumstances led Zerbini to operate on the human thorax. At that time, the heart was still an “anatomical fiction” that could be directly viewed or touched only in the morgue. Thoracic surgeons in the 1930s ventured only near the lungs and, even then, with reservation. Pulmonary surgery, which did not involve direct intervention on the lungs, was primarily for tuberculosis. The sanatoria were full and the only hope for survival for many tuberculosis sufferers was to undergo thoracoplasty. Operating on tuberculosis patients was almost a social mission, posing grave risks for the surgeon because of the possibility of patient-to-physician contamination. Zerbini, however, never contracted the disease. Four years after graduating from medical school, Zerbini was the youngest head of a division at the Medical School of the University of Sao Paulo. To fill the highly coveted post of first assistant in the discipline, a position immediately below that of full professor, Dr Alipio Correia Netto could have chosen one of his longtime assistants. Surprisingly, he opted to appoint Zerbini to the position. At the age of 29, Zerbini took up the senior teaching position at the Medical School of the University of Sao Paulo. To this end, he studied hard for 1 year to compete for a position that normally required 5 years of preparation. He was required to take oral and written examinations on live and cadaveric operations, and to defend a thesis. The subject chosen for his lecture was supratentorial brain tumors. His score for the examination was 9.41 on a 10-point scale [1]. Address reprint requests to Dr Salerno, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Jackson Memorial Hospital, PO Box 016960 (R114), Miami, FL 33101; e-mail: tsalerno@med.miami.edu.