Evandro's Tribute

Helmut BertalanffyHannover, March 2021

With sorrow and grief in my heart am I writing these lines, and my thoughts are now with Evandro's family, especially with Marina.

I met Evandro more than 2 decades ago, when I already knew about him from my friend Toshio Matsushima, Japan. Many years ago he spent with Toshio a certain time period in Florida at Dr. Al Rhoton's neuroanatomical lab. Both lay there an important foundation stone for their future work.

Thereafter, I had the opportunity of meeting Evandro what seems countless times at various neurosurgical congresses and workshops in many parts of the world. This surely created quite strong friendship ties between us. However, as we used to live quite far away from each other, not meeting personally for even a longer period of time did not have much significance because it was expectable that we might see each other again on some occasion in the future. The recent information about his passing away deeply moved me because I realized that there will be no such future occasion, and I will never have the chance to meet Evandro again. Together with many other international colleagues I lost a good friend for ever. Such a painful experience!

I am sure that other colleagues who knew Evandro better than me will adequately evaluate and appreciate his academic and professional life-time achievements and his extraordinary contributions to neurosurgery that cannot be described in only few lines. But apart from such objective facts, Evandro will always remain in our memory for many other reasons. There is no doubt that he was a technical master of his profession and a famous representative of the „global“ neurosurgical community. But what made Evandro outstanding? It was not only his high professional level, it was also his exceptional character and warm personality. Looking back into the past, I always admired Evandro for his enthusiasm and affinity for neuroanatomy, for his three-dimensional imagination, for his unique presentations from which not only young but also experienced neurosurgeons like me could learn something new, for his elegant style of presenting a certain surgical field in direct comparison with an illustrative anatomical dissection, for his constant wish to share his profound experience with others, for his technical skills exemplified by the clearly structured and bloodless way he carried out his neurosurgical procedures, for his qualities as clinician and teacher, and for his prudent way of communication mixed with humor, just to name a few of his strong points.

I enjoyed sharing with Evandro the membership in the World Academy of Neurosurgery (WANS) and in the Nominating Committee of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies, among others. I will not forget our many meetings in various places of Japan, in the USA (e.g. New Orleans, St. Louis), in Argentina (with our families), in Portugal (Braga, together with Guilherme Ribas), in France (Paris) and many other places, and of course in Brazil, for instance 2008 at the neurosurgical meeting organized by Evandro in Iguassu.

If I could tell Evandro directly some farewell words, these would perhaps be: “it was a privilege knowing you, my friend Evandro; I will miss you; I will miss your contagious smile; I will miss your professional inspiration; you were a great man, a superb and energetic neurosurgeon; we will not forget you; be sure that people will always hold you in the highest regard!“ ([Figs. 1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]).

Fig. 1 Professors Helmut Bertalanffy, Evandro de Oliveira and Ossama Al- Mefty in St Louis – USA, 2008.

Fig. 2 Evandro scrubbing, Braga- Portugal, 2010.

Fig. 3 Professors Helmut Bertalanffy and Evandro de Oliveira in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, 2008.

Fig. 4 Evandro working during a travel in Japan.

Fig. 5 Professors Helmut Bertalanffy, Evandro de Oliveira, Carlos Alegria and Guilherme Carvalhal Ribas, Braga – Portugal, 2010.

Fig. 6 Helmut Bertalanffy, Evandro de Oliveira and spounses, Marina and Atsuko, Argentina, November 2010.

Publication History

Article published online:
28 June 2021