Dr Giancarlo Rastelli’s life was shaped by a deep desire to do scientific research. Despite a premature death in 1970 at the age of 36, he was successful in his mission. More than 3 decades later, cardiac surgeons throughout the world still save lives using the Rastelli procedure, a surgical innovation for the treatment of congenital heart disease. It is also noteworthy that this and other developments in cardiovascular research were achieved while Dr Rastelli battled complications of Hodgkin disease in the last 5 years of his life. Dr Rastelli received his medical degree from the University of Parma in Italy. In 1960, he received a NATO scholarship for international study in the newly developing field of cardiovascular surgery. He chose to study at the Mayo Clinic under Dr John W. Kirklin who had performed many of the world’s first successful open heart operations to repair congenital heart abnormalities. Complex congenital heart diseases were almost always fatal when Dr Rastelli began his studies, but his research soon led to greatly improved outcomes. The American Medical Association awarded the Gold Medal to Dr Rastelli for his contributions to the treatment of congenital heart diseases for 2 consecutive years. The first was for a precise anatomical classification of atrioventricular canal defects that facilitated the development of new surgical strategies. The techniques were quickly adopted at the Mayo Clinic by Dr Kirklin and Dr Dwight McGoon and resulted in a dramatic reduction of surgical mortality rates—from 60% to 20%. The second AMA Gold Medal was awarded to Dr Rastelli for developing extracardiac outflow conduits used for surgical correction of truncus arteriosus. Subsequent studies of this concept led in 1967 to the development of the Rastelli procedure, a surgical technique to correct transposition of the great vessels associated with ventricular septal defect and pulmonary stenosis. In 1968, he was appointed head of cardiovascular surgical research at the Mayo Clinic, an unusual position for such a young investigator. He had left his native Parma because he wanted to pursue a high level of research. Rastelli’s emigration to the United States began an exchange that ultimately worked to Italy’s benefit. In the intervening years, hundreds of operations have been performed on Italian children at the Mayo Clinic. And many Italian physicians have followed in his footsteps by completing their postgraduate training at the Mayo Clinic. Most of them have returned to Italy to help raise the level of medicine practiced there and to expand intercultural links. His daughter Antonella, who was only 4 years old when her father died, graduated from medical school in Verona, Italy, and now works at Washington University, St Louis, Mo. Dr Rastelli was both scientist and humanist—an exceptional physician with a natural curiosity who displayed enthusiasm, sensitivity, compassion, intelligence, courage, and respect in dealing with personal, collegial, and patient relationships. His classifications and the procedure that was named after him have given the gift of life to numerous children all over the world.
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Jan 1, 2014
Jakub Stępniewski + 7
