University of Coimbra Medical School
Adult Cardiac
Member Since: 1995
Manuel J Antunes, MD, Phd; DSC.
Emeritus Professor, University of Coimbra Medical School;
Past-Director of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Transplantation of Thoracic Organs of the University Hospital of Coimbra (1988-2018).
Past-Chief Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery of the University of the Witwatersrand (1986-88)
Deputy Director of the Portuguese Journal of Cardiology;
Associate Editor of the Brazilian Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery; Associate Editor of the European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery
Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery; Member of the International Advisory Board "Heart", and another 10 international journals.
Fellow European Society of Cardiology and American College of Cardiology; Member American Association of Thoracic Surgery and European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery; Fellow European Board of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons,1998
Honorary Member of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland; Honorary Member Mexican Society of Cardiovascular Surgery; Honorary Member Venezuelan Society of Cardiology
Honorary Member of the Brazilian Academy of Cardiovascular Surgery
Past and Honorary President of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology;
Past-President of the National Academy of Medicine of Portugal;
Author of more than 500 scientific papers published in indexed scientific journals and about 1,250 presentations in congresses and other scientific meetings.
Author of Mitral Valve Repair (color atlas of surgical technique), 1989. A Doença da Saúde (The Disease of Health, NHS), 2000, Co-Author of Heart Valve Disease: A guide to patient management after surgery, 2006
Surgical Experience: More than 35,000 open heart procedures, including more than 10,000 valve operations (about 3,000 mitral and aortic valvuloplasties) and 350 heart transplantations.
As a member and current President of Cadeia da Esperança (Chain of Hope) Portugal, organized and participated in 22 annual surgical missions to the Maputo Heart Institute, since 2001 with more than 400 patients operated, mostly rheumatic mitral valve repairs
More than 20 national and international honorific awards.
What Does the AATS Mean to You:
Highest scientific forum in Cardiothoracic Surgery
My First Experience with AATS:
First AATS annual Meeting attended in Atlanta, 1983
Why I became an AATS member:
By invitation of Prof. Floyd Loop
The most impactful presentation I have seen at an AATS meeting:
Cardiac valve surgery - the French correction, by Alain Carpentier, in Atlanta 1983
The first presentation I gave is:
- Surgical results of mitral valve annuloplasty. 12th Biennial Congress of the Southern Africa Cardiac Society, Johannesburg, August 1980
- Degenerative Mitral Valve Regurgitation: Towards One Hundred Percent Repair. AATS Annual Meeting in Seattle, April
The first paper I had published is:
Intermittent aortic regurgitation following aortic valve replacement with the Hall-Kaster prosthesis. Antunes MJ, Colsen PR, Kinsley RH. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 84: 751-4, 1982.
I plan on becoming more involved in the organization through:
As a retired surgeon, I have no further plans in this respect.
Advice for Trainees:
Work hard. If something wrong happens to you, work harder. But no matter how hard you work, some things will still come out wrong. So, work even harder."
My career in CT Surgery was inspired by:
The first heart trasplant by Chris Barnard, in 1967
A significant case/patient interaction that impacted my career is:
My first heart tranplantation patient, in 2002 - the impact of seeing a patient (momentarily) without a heart
The biggest impact my mentor had on my career is:
Professor John Barlow encouragement to learn and practice mitral valve repair, in 1980
The topic most important to advancing the field of CT Surgery is:
Creating new forms of patient care and improved treatment options
The most pressing issues impacting CT surgery are:
The diminishing interest in the specialty by recently qualified doctors
Advice for Trainees:
Work hard. If something wrong happens to you, work harder. But no matter how hard you work, some things will still come out wrong. So, work even harder.