Farewell Evandro!

Raul Marino Jr. M.D., PhDProfessor and chairman of Neurosurgery(Emeritus Professor) University of São Paulo Medical School, BrazilPrivat Docent Professor in Medical Ethics and Bioethics, University of São Paulo.

“He whom the gods love dies young, while he has strength and senses and wits”

PLAUTUS (Bacchides (254–184 B.C)

Doctor Evandro de Oliveira, since we have been associates for many years, reminds me of a famous quote from Sir Isaac Newton, in 1675, when he said to Robert Hooke: “ If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. Evandro and I had the same blessing and inspiration of working among giants, one of whom was Evandro himself. Working together for many years ([Figs. 1] [2] [3]), I found out that we both met our mission and our destiny together. Evandro and his wife Marina were my best man and best maid when I married Angela. He has also operated upon my mother and my younger son. To me that says a lot!

Fig. 1 Profs Raul Marino Jr, Evandro de Oliveira and M. G. Yasargil at the auditorium of Microsurgical laboratory of Hospital of Beneficencia Portuguesa of São Paulo.

Fig. 2 Profs Raul Marino Jr, Evandro de Oliveira, Albert Rhoton and Jules Hardy in one of the several meetings Evandro lectured.

Fig. 3 Profs Raul Marino Jr, M G Yasargil, Antonio H. de Moraes (one of the gretset business man in Brazil at the time) and Evandro de Oliveira at the Hospital Benficencia Portuguesa of Sao Paulo.

I started to admire the young Evandro during some of his appearances at the Brazilian Neurosurgery Society meetings, and started to correspond with him during his stay as a research fellow with Al Rhoton in Gainesville, Florida. When he returned, in 1983, we founded our private neurosurgical service together: “The S. Paulo Neurological Institute”. When I was nominated Professor and Chairman of Neurosurgery of the University of São Paulo Medical School, I convinced him to start his academic career, and he soon became responsible for the vascular and tumor groups, as its chief, where many of his assistants were trained. It would be pointless to describe the many contributions he started to make in the microsurgery of complex aneurisms and AVM's. There, and in our private service at the Portuguese Hospital he operated upon thousands of cases, with a detail: they were all well documented, as Dr. Charles Drake and Yasargil used to do. In the meantime Evandro started to travel: He was with Yasargil in Zürich, with Vinko Dolenc in Slovenia, Charles Drake in Ontario, and back and forth in Gainesville perfecting his lectures. We also started a microsurgery Lab in the basement in one of the hospital houses, which soon became a large lab in the main hospital building, which started to attract participants all all over the world and visiting professors like Yasargil himself, Dolenc, Rhoton, Al Mefty, Jules Hardy, and many others. Evandro's courses became very popular among Brazilian residents and surgeons and still active until recently, when he start to show some signs of a neurological progressive problem, which interrupted his brilliand career a few months ago.

I remember when professor Yasargil, was elected the “Neurosurgeon of the Century”, in Boston, during the Congress Meeting in 1999.

Today we have our own Brazilian Yasargil, our Neurosurgeon of the century in São Paulo, where he left thousands. of disciples and worshipers that nicknamed him:” the whisperer brain surgeon” a title that makes him justice.

Conflict of Interest

None.

Publication History

Article published online:
28 June 2021