Having become the first female cardiac surgeon in France in 1971, Francine Leca died at the age of 86. A pioneer in pediatric cardiac surgery, she founded the Mécénat surgical cardiac association which has operated on 5,000 children with malformations in around sixty countries.
Francine Leca, the first woman to become a cardiac surgeon in France and a pioneer of pediatric cardiac surgery, died at the age of 86, we learned on Saturday from the association she founded.
The first female cardiac surgeon in France in 1971
“A child’s heart was for her like a work of art that she wanted to restore,” responded to AFP Pascale Grais-Lacour, former director of the medical center of the Mécenat Chrirurgie Cardiaque association. . Francine Leca became the first female heart surgeon in France in 1971, after attending her first heart operation at the Laennec hospital in Paris. A “revelation” for the student at the time, who was heading towards hand surgery.
She decided to specialize in pediatric cardiac surgery, “a man’s world”, remembers Pascale Grais-Lacour who worked for 45 years alongside her. In 1996, Professor Leca founded the Mécénat surgical cardiac association, after receiving a desperate letter from an Iranian father who was unable to have his child’s heart operated on in his country.
Since then, this association has operated on 5,000 children with heart defects in around sixty countries where there is a lack of means to access this expensive surgery. Francine Leca had “remained close to many of her former patients whom she had operated on as children. She said ‘I’m not a can opener, I operate on my patients and I follow them'”, recalls her former colleague, making tribute to “his listening and his tolerance”.
