The sudden death of Manuel Quero Jimenez, on 22 August 2003, plunged his team and the international scientific community into great sorrow and despair.
Manuel Quero was born 1941, in Andujar, a small Andalusian town where he spent his childhood. Later, his father moved to a Castillian village, a peaceful place where he developed his work as a doctor. There, Manuel lived and studied. The excellent intellectual culture of his parents, together with the courage of an admirable mother, whose help never faltered him, directed Manuel to Madrid, where he received his secondary education at the High School “Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu”. His schoolmates still remember him as an amusing boy, but emphasize his will and tenacity. He studied Medicine at the University of Madrid, soon being noted for his perseverance. He would remain for days in the hospital, dividing his time between the library and the patients, and sparing only a few hours for sleep. At this time, he was greatly influenced not only in his medical training, but also in aspects of humanity, by Professors Casas and Salmeron, whom Manuel subsequently remembered with kindness and admiration. It was Professor Salmeron, an adult cardiologist, who introduced Manuel to the heart, while the lectures of Professor Zarco fixed this burgeoning attraction towards cardiology.
But at the same time, he was opening new areas of knowledge. He started to learn French and English, and to spend his summers in Germany in order to become familiar with another new language, simultaneously learning Russian. He also made his first trip to London, where Dick Bonham Carter showed him the attractions of Paediatric Cardiology. This calm and human doctor was one of the strongest influences in the subsequent approach to life adopted by Manuel.
It was in 1965 that Professor Jaso, a well-known Spanish Pediatrician, and Manager of the Hospital Infantil “La Paz” in Madrid, issued the call to Manuel to begin the development of Paediatric Cardiology. The initial team comprised Manuel and a nurse, Miss Consuelo who also sadly died very recently, along with an electrocardiographic machine. With this minimal support, he looked after an incredible number of children with cardiac problems, who flocked to Madrid from all over Spain. With scarce initial resources, but the help of courageous surgeons, they began their work, not only undertaking the medical activities, but actively publishing scientific papers focussed on the anatomopathological findings of complex congenital cardiopathies and surgical palliatives techniques.
Shortly thereafter, Manuel married Claude Volovickis. Her understanding and sympathy proved of immense help in his subsequent scientific development. Slowly, Manuel was able to establish contact with others developing comparable interests in paediatric cardiology, including Jean Kachaner in Paris, with his colleagues at Hôpital des Enfants Malades, and Henry Parrot del Kremlin-Bicètre, the group in Britain and Holland that cooperated in updating of the segmental analysis of congenital cardiac diseases, with the Bostonians with whom he reviewed embryological theories and new surgical approaches, and with the group working at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
Meanwhile, in 1972 he submitted his Doctoral Thesis entitled “Alteraciones en la relación del canal aurículo ventricular con el tabique interventricular; estudio anatómico de un amplio espectro de malformaciones”. By this time, his department had developed a laboratory for hemodynamics and catheterization, and provided the expertise in extracorporeal circulation to supporting the surgical team. He also published, in 1973, the monograph on “Cardiopatías Congénitas. Diagnóstico y Tratamiento de Urgencia” that regrettably appeared only in Spanish. This book, of scarcely 200 pages, provides an excellent synopsis of the specialty, and has become the standard reference book for Spanish-speaking trainees in Paediatric Cardiology. From that moment on, his output became intense, and he was able to publish papers in the majority of the national and international medical journals. In particular, he contributed to the knowledge of transposed great arteries, atrioventricular septal defect, and the functionally univentricular heart. He also organized several meetings, such as the annual meeting of the Association for Paediatric Cardiology, held in Madrid in 1979. His scientific activities led to an invitation from the group in Los Angeles to direct their Department of Pediatric Cardiology, but he declined their offer because he believed his work was in Spain, and he had no desire to leave his country.
Having organized the Pediatric Cardiac Department in the Hospital La Paz, his aims, coupled with the needs of the country, pushed him to create a new Department in the Ramón y Cajal Hospital, where he founded the first combined Medical and Surgical Unit of Pediatric Cardiology in Spain. With the new team, he continued his intense activity, and contributed to the development of new technologies coupled with many more papers. He also established new contacts in Italy and Poland. Throughout his life, he had recognized the importance of teaching, and in recognition of this, he was appointed Associate Professor of Pediatric Cardiology in the Alcalá de Henares University. Under this banner, he continued to train, at Ramón y Cajal Hospital, very many Spanish paediatric cardiologists, as well as specialists coming from South America.
But his activities were not only scientific. In 1974, he was nominated Vicepresident of the Spanish Society of Cardiology, and also became a council member of the Association for European Paediatric Cardiology. He later became secretary of the International Federation of Cardiology, and organized one of their meetings in Spain. Throughout his career, he fought for the recognition of the paediatric specialty, and was a member of the first Spanish National Council of Cardiology. From that moment on, he partook in numerous Tribunals, Congresses, and Society events in Spain and in other countries, always with an incredible humility. Such an intense activity attracted the attention of the Spanish public administration and, in 1989, he was appointed the Director of Ramón y Cajal Hospital, a position he filled with success for 5 years.
But who was Manolo Quero? In a hommage that was held in his memory, one of his collaborators defined him as a “good man”. In fact, he was much more. I, personally, would add that not only was he good, but also that he believed in the goodness of the others. He never would speak in a bad way of other people, not even his enemies, and he had enemies. He was always eager to help. His office was always open for advice, be it medical or humane. He suffered as we cannot imagine with social injustices and with useless wars. His last years were not happy. He was disappointed by the cold and inflexible behaviour of the establishment, the lack of acknowledgement, failure to consider the work already accomplished, the indifference of the youth towards the work well done, and other ethical aspects. Indeed, somewhat belatedly he was beginning to realize in his “world of goodness” that human kind can also be wicked. All this began to undermine slowly his spirit, and at the same time, his unrelenting physical activity began also to undermine his body. In a very kind letter that Stella Van Praagh wrote to his wife Claude, remembering Manolo, she stated “Those who are loved by gods, die young”. Manolo died young, but he lived intensely. He lived in the peace of the men of good will, enjoying his profession, the songs by Brassens, roman churches, and the barren fields of the Castillian country. In truth, he was a kind of quixotic character. He also loved the green French landscape, and enjoyed long discussions with his friends having a beer. He was always happy listening to music, and reading Flaubert, Elliot, or Kant.
Today, when I am personally broken by the recent death of my mother, I understand that the medical community has lost a great scientist, and the patients an excellent doctor. But I, and those who have loved him, have lost something more, a dear friend, good and humane, whom we will not easily be able to forget.
