Francisco Romero (surgeon)

Francisco Romero was a Spanish physician who became the first successful heart surgeon, on record, by performing an open pericardiostomy to treat a pericardial effusion in 1801.[1] According to a lost, but later found, memoir belonging to Romero, he performed at least two successful open pericardial drainages with no deaths.[2] Also according to his memoir, he performed five open drainages of pleural effusions with success, with one patient dying at 6 months.[2] Romero is credited as the first heart surgeon, since he was the first medical doctor on record to cut into the pericardium, the lining of the heart, on a living patient with a successful outcome.[3]