(Fotografia: Jornal de Negócios)

The eminent cardiologist was awarded the Personality Award at a ceremony held at the Oriente Museum, in Lisbon, where other health institutions were also distinguished.

Fernando Pádua is one of the leading names in Medicine and Preventive Cardiology in Portugal. He graduated in Medicine and specialised in Cardiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, where he obtained his doctorate.

As stated in a news article in Jornal de Negócios, “It was after graduating in Cardiology at Harvard University, in 1953, that he became a champion for health prevention, of which the fight against smoking in the name of a healthy heart was just an example. He presided over the Portuguese Society of Cardiology, founded and led the Portuguese Foundation for Cardiology, the National Institute of Preventive Cardiology, and the Professor Fernando de Pádua Foundation.”

Professor Fausto Pinto presented the award and Professor Fernando Pádua gave a speech, which you can read here [link].

Referring to his colleague and friend, the director of the FMUL said, “The person we’re honouring here today was irreproachable in the way he respected the Hippocratic Oath and is, possibly, what many have already called him: “The sublime and more purist personification of the Physician in the humanist, scientific, and pedagogical dimensions”. The thousands of patients he treated throughout his brilliant career are living proof of this. Allow me to paraphrase Churchill, albeit in a very different context, by saying “Never was so much owed by so many to one single Man”.