The History and Future of the Foundation and Perinatal Medicine in Argentina

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"We are in Buenos Aries at the moment during the 9th World Congress of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology. I am Professor Liliana Voto, the President of the Miguel Margulies Foundation. This foundation is an institution that is in charge of organizing this big committee. The Miguel Margulies Foundation started twenty-five years ago when Professor Margulies opened his personal library to all young doctors, and doctors in general, in Argentina. They were permitted to go in and find news about research, new topics in the world about obstetrical and gynecological medicine, and about general medicine. Professor Margulies was a pioneer in perinatal medicine in Argentina, and also a pioneer in the study of ultrasound. Our foundation was the first institution that started working with ultrasound and published the first papers in Argentina on work about embryos and the placenta with the very, very old machines at that time - around 1974-1975 - when ultrasound really started.

The Miguel Margulies Foundation is an institution that's growing every year, and we're going to start up a new center this next year. It's going to be a center for post-graduate training for doctors and for all subjects related to health. The center was named the Center for Capacitation, and the Minister of Education of Argentina has accredited the foundation to award certificates in postgraduate education, host and organize courses, and give accreditation to the people in different subjects relating to medicine (assistants, midwives, nurses, etc.).

ISUOG is linked to us because we have been host to most of the professors on the ISUOG Board during the last ten years. They come to Buenos Aires every year to give lectures, and we have invited three or four of those doctors to our symposium each year that the foundation has been organized. This is our link with ISUOG. We were also at the ISUOG meetings and presented our results there.

In general, the Miguel Margulies Foundation is a teaching and research institution that specializes in obstetrics, gynecology, and perinatal medicine, but it is open to all interesting subjects relating to medicine. We are also going to start with some animal experimentation to begin working in basic medicine. The fields of our research especially emphasize ultrasound, hypertension in pregnancy, and fetal treatment. Professor Margulies was the pioneer in Latin America on fetal treatment. He started working with RH disease in the 1950's.

In 1974, we performed the first open surgery in Buenos Aires to put a catheter in a fetus. During an open surgery that year we took a fetus out of the uterus and put in a catheter to make the transfusion. That was done with Professor Karliss Adamsson, a friend of Margulies and also a friend of the foundation now. They performed this in Buenos Aires. The baby was born okay and is now completely healthy. This happened here in Buenos Aires before many other centers in the world did these same procedures.

That put the focus of all our research on fetal treatment and on perinatal medicine, and that's why Margulies has always been very enthusiastic about this topic. But the most important thing about this man is his generosity. He's really a very good man who tries to share his knowledge with everybody. He tries to help anyone he can, and he opened the doors of the foundation to all the people who want to learn and know what is happening in medicine in 1999, and at any time. He's a very good man, and that is the reason why, at the opening ceremony yesterday, everybody was crowding around Professor Margulies. He's not only very well known here in Argentina, but also around the world for all the things that he has done for medicine."