Specialists discussed the current challenges in maintaining heart organ donors, intensive management of heart transplants, the organization and role of nursing in this process, and surgical techniques and organ preservation and transport, among other aspects of interest.

The event also paid tribute to the founders of this activity in Cuba.

On December 9, 1985, a multidisciplinary team from this prestigious hospital, led by Professor Noel González, performed the first heart transplant in Cuba, which is also considered the first to be performed in a third world country.

The multidisciplinary team also included surgeons Virgilio Camacho and Félix Duarte, anesthesiologist Antonio Cabrera, cardiologist Elba Garzón, and nurses Marta Corpión, Jorge Tápanes and Carmen Delgado, among other specialists.

The recipient was 38-year-old Jorge Hernández Ocaña, who was hospitalized in the intensive care unit of that hospital with heart failure that was in imminent danger to his life.

A year later, on December 26, 1986, the first heart-lung transplant was performed, also being the first in a Latin American country.

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