The gynecologist and obstetrician Santiago Dexeus, who transformed medical care for the sexual and reproductive health of women in Spain, died this Friday in Madrid at the age of 88.
“It had a great impact on all the medical and social aspects of women’s comprehensive health,” said Jaume Padrós, president of the Col legi de Metges de Barcelona, ??this Friday. “She had a very innovative vision.” Although Santiago Dexeus’ ideas on women’s health are widely accepted today, they were not yet accepted when he began his career in the last years of Franco’s regime.
He was one of the first, and possibly most influential, advocates for the birth control pill to become accepted. “He was a very brave person who saw clearly where he had to go; I have always had great admiration for him,” said biologist Anna Veiga this Friday, who has worked for four decades at the Dexeus Institute and treated him closely.
As a surgeon, “his most important contribution was the introduction of gynecological laparoscopy in Spain,” highlighted this Friday Pere Barri, a specialist in reproductive medicine and president of the Dexeus Mujer Foundation who also worked with him for years. Laparoscopy, a minimally invasive surgical technique that allows access to the interior of the abdomen without making a large incision, now has multiple indications in gynecology.
As a manager, he founded the Dexeus Institute in Barcelona with his brother Josep Maria in 1973, where he directed the department of Gynecology and Obstetrics until 2004. Although Santiago Dexeus did not specialize in assisted reproduction, he encouraged the institute to lead this new area of ??medicine. of reproduction since its beginnings. His support was key so that the first baby in Spain – and the fourth in Europe – conceived by in vitro fertilization, Victoria Anna Perea, was born there in 1984.
A member of Gauche Divine, the movement of intellectuals, artists and progressive professionals that emerged in Barcelona in the 60s, he was connected to the world of culture and aware of improving society. He became one of the most popular doctors of his generation, with a frequent presence in the press, radio and television. His media coverage helped him make his vision of women’s medicine known and accepted.
“He introduced a discourse that moved away from paternalism and contributed to the empowerment of women with respect to their sexual health,” declares Jaume Padrós, from the Col·legi de Metges, who also highlights that “Santiago Dexeus has had an important role in the national prestige and international that the Institut Dexeus has acquired.”
“He was a true leader. Together with his brother Josep Maria [eleven years older and died in 2016] they revolutionized gynecology and obstetrics and turned the Institut Dexeus into a first-class center,” highlights Gabriel Masfurroll, a healthcare entrepreneur who invested in the institute and has maintained a relationship with Santiago. Dexeus a friendship of forty years.
As an example of his leadership, Mafurroll remembers that in 1989 “we were the first private hospital in Spain to be associated with a public university. We became Institut Universitari Dexeus. Later others have done it, but when we started with the Autonomous University (UAB) it was something unprecedented. And it was thanks to the vision of Santiago and Josep Maria.” As a result of that initiative, several classes of resident doctors have been formed at the institute.
Born in Barcelona in 1935, son of a prestigious gynecologist also named Santiago Dexeus, he studied medicine at the University of Barcelona. After graduating in 1959, he furthered his training in hospitals in Manchester, Geneva, Paris and Florence. He received his doctorate from the University of Madrid (today called Universidad Complutense) in 1967 with a thesis on cervical cancer. At that time he specialized in gynecological cancers and directed the Anticancer Fight Center of the Provincial Maternity of Barcelona from 1967 to 1972.
His career at the Dexeus Institute, which he had founded with his brother, ended abruptly in 2008 when he was forced to cease his activity after reaching retirement age, as established by the statutes of the company Consultorio Dexeus. Gabriel Masfurroll offered him to continue as honorary president of the Dexeus University Institute (which is not governed by the statutes of Consultorio Dexeus) and the scientific direction of the hospital, with a remuneration commensurate with the position. But he rejected the offer and preferred to open a new consultation at the Tres Torres Clinic.
“My problem is that I only have one hobby, which is medicine,” he declared in an interview with La Vanguardia after leaving the institute. “I want to continue practicing medicine, not an administrative position.” Furthermore, he admitted, he was very hurt because “people who are former students of mine, to whom I have provided a scientific career, have thrown me out as they have.”
He later founded the Women’s Gynecological Clinic, of which he was scientific director. In recent years he had abandoned the practice of medicine and resided in Madrid, where he had moved to live with his wife, also a gynecologist Lola Ojeda.
