Iván González Cancel
| Ivan F. Gonzalez Cancel | |
|---|---|
| Secretary of Health of Puerto Rico | |
|
In office 2009–2009 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | Utuado, Puerto Rico |
| Political party |
Democratic Party New Progressive Party |
| Profession | Physician |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
| Website | www |
Ivan F. Gonzalez Cancel is a cardiovascular and heart transplant surgeon credited for having performed the first heart transplant surgery in Puerto Rico.
He was born in 1960 in municipality of Utuado, Puerto Rico. He lived in Utuado, PR until the age of 10, when the Gonzalez Cancel family decides to move to Bayamon, PR. It is in Bayamon were the young Ivan Gonzalez Cancel studies fifth and sixth grade. In 1970 his family had again to relocalize, this time to the community of Levittown in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. He conducted all his elementary, and high school studies in the Public School System of Puerto Rico.
In 1977 he is admitted to the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. He excels as an undergraduate student and in 1980 enrolls in the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. During his medical studies he decides to become a Surgeon and in 1989 he joins the Puerto Rico Medical Center Surgery Residency Program. After being told that at that time becoming a Cardiovascular Surgeon was impossible and that he should forget about it; in 1989 he joins the Cardiovascular Surgery faculty at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. After completing his training in Cardiovascular Surgery he decides to pursue a fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh in Heart and Lung Transplant.
In 1993 after completing his training in mainland United States he returned to Puerto Rico to practice as a Cardiovascular and Heart Transplant Surgeon. It is in 1999 when he makes history by conducting the first heart transplant surgery in Puerto Rico. In June 27, 1999, Dr.Ivan Gonzalez Cancel along with a group of healthcare professionals performed the surgery which took 3 hours and 17 minutes at the Cardiovascular Center of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Among the group of physicians that participated in the successful surgery were: Dr. Héctor Banchs Pieretti, Dr. Cid Quintana, Dr. Rolando Colón, Dr. Héctor Delgado Osorio and Dr. Efraín Defendini.
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