Abstract
Luis Tavares revolutionized cardiac surgery, always bringing the most modern instruments and equipment from his travels to England - surgical forceps, scissors, scalpels, etc. He always insisted that he was not just a thoracic surgeon, for his work extended over a wide field and created three important cardiac surgery centers which promoted a great development of cardiology. He carried out the first open heart surgery (atrial septal defect) employing extracorporeal circulation and closure of a ventricular septal defect with deep surface hypothermia of north and northeast Brazil. He promoted an intense scientific exchange program between Recife and England, resulting in significant advances in medicine, and participated directly in the creation of HEMOPE), leading to radical changes and improvements in blood therapy in the whole country. The PROCAPE, inaugurated in 2006, was the result of the cardiac center created by him in early 1970 at Hospital Oswaldo Cruz and can be considered the second largest public-university cardiology center in Brazil. He is thus widely regarded as an outstanding name in medicine in the 20th century and one of the fathers of modern cardiac surgery in Brazil.