“Franco Mosca milestone to remember”
We receive and publish the letter from Mauro Ferrari, Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University of Pisa and Director of the Vascular Surgery Operating Unit and of the Cardio Thoraco Vascular Department of the Pisan University Hospital. Regarding the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the first organ transplant in Pisa, Ferrari wanted to remember his – and many other – teacher, the professor Franco Mosca.
“I read yesterday, with great pleasure, the articles on the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first kidney transplant in Pisa. On this occasion, always reading the articles printed in the press and online, the transplants of other organs were also mentioned, from alone or in combination.
It is a beautiful success story of Pisa, of our Hospital and of our University, also of many others, individuals and associations, and of the Tuscany Region which has supported the Pisan transplant program from the very beginning. The role in which they grew up had a group in which decisive in creating, had and developing the various transplant programs: in particular it has Professor Boggi and, for which liver transplant, Professor Filipponi first and Professor De Simone after.
I remember well an event mentioned by some newspapers, when the baton (in kidney transplants) passed to Professor Carmellini and from him to Professor Boggi, but just as well when Professor Mosca reactivated the kidney transplant program in 1982after his Master, Professor Mario Selli, had turned it on in 1972, 50 years ago, in fact.
I remember that the group from Professor Mosca, whose operational headquarters was at the so-called ‘Surgical Pathology’ (today building 19 of the S. Chiara Hospital), moved directly to the ‘Surgical Clinic’ (today Building 9, also in S Chiara), because the operating rooms of the ‘Surgical Pathology’ were not authorized to perform kidney transplantation. In those days, I was often the one who helped Professor Mosca with the transplant surgery. Then, I headed towards Vascular Surgery and Mario Carmellini became the Aid and then the first operator. Professor Mosca, as he has always done, preferred to stand aside and leave space for young people.
I remember the commitment with which he directed and motivated the whole group and the determination with which he highlighted Pisa within the national transplant program. Whenever the news of a possible transplant came, the whole mechanism was activated and he demanded that there was not the slightest uncertainty in any of the phases of activation and alerting of the possible recipient, ascertaining the donor-recipient compatibility, preparation of the operating room. All involved and all ‘belly to earth’, come loved terrible. The feeling was that this was the only purpose of his life: however, staying close to him, it was clear that the same was true for other projects, all faced with the spirit to which Ugo Boggi referred, or as a ‘Surgeon’, not by one who he is a surgeon and more.
In the summer, then, some Centers closer to Pisa ‘took a break’ and he, on the other hand, multiplied (and we with him, of course, all, without exception) the energies to accommodate all the organs that it was possible to transplant. I’m certainly not the only one to remember those moments!
About the liver transplant, I will say nothing except, quite simply, that there would be no liver transplant program. in Pisa without Professor Mosca. During a ceremony commemorating the death of Professor Mosca, which took place in June last year, in the Aula Magna of Sapienza, Dr. Vincenzo Passarelli, President of the local Organ Donors Association (AIDO) at the time of the granting of the ministerial authorization in Pisa, who later became AIDO National President, he said it clearly: without himwithout his determination, his insistence, his ability to believe, the authorization would not be obtained and liver transplants in Pisa were not done.
Then, rightly, the merit of having developed the programs, having enhanced them, enriched them and made them among the best in an absolute sense, made it belongs to those who took the baton from him, but, without him, not so that they aspire to what could.
Celebrating ‘our successes’, that is the health community to which we belong, is a must, especially in a phase in which civil society not seem to notice of how much work and how much sacrifice is (and has been) lavished by this community for the benefit of the population they have, but we must also remember those figures who, with their skills and their extraordinary personality, allow and real leaps in quality.
Fortunately, in Pisa, there were more than one of these figures, but in transplants, the milestone is called Franco Mosca. If he is not the only one, we will all rejoice together “.