Professor Doutor Fernando Gilberto de Melo Costa: uma Jornada de Dedicação e Lealdade à Ortopedia Infantil

Abstract

Fernando Gilberto de Melo Costa (1951-2022) was a distinguished doctor, university lecturer and researcher. Specialising in Orthopaedics, it was at the Centro Hospitalar Universitário de São João and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP) that he built a remarkable career, with a clear affinity for Children's Orthopaedics. As a clinician, he was Head of the Orthopaedics and Traumatology Service at the Hospital São João and Director of the Children's Orthopaedics Department of the same Service, a position he held with sublimity for over 20 years. In the academic institution that accompanied him throughout his career, he began as a Monitor, while still a student, and ended up as Chairman of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, as well as Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto. He presented his Doctoral thesis in Medicine in 1995, an innovative experimental study on electrical stimulation of growth cartilage, which won the "Prémio Jorge Mineiro" in 1996. Considered a national reference in Children's Orthopaedics, he has written and presented numerous papers and communications at various scientific meetings throughout Europe, consistently raising the profile of Hospital São João and FMUP. He was the National Delegate of the Societé International de Chirurgie Orthopedique et Traumatologie (SICOT) and the Association des Orthopédistes de Langue Française (AOLF), a Member of the Board of the Portuguese Society of Orthopaedic and Traumatology (SPOT) and President of the Section for the Study of Children's Orthopaedics (SEOI) of SPOT. Close collaborators of Professor Gilberto Costa cannot describe him without enumerating his excellent clinical and interpersonal skills, which are the result of his rigid and incredibly methodical personality, as well as his empathetic, affable and extraordinarily loyal nature. The purpose of this dissertation is to pay tribute to his contribution to the Portuguese orthopaedic school and, above all, to honour the person he was for all his family, friends, colleagues, interns, students and patients.