Alain Deloche, MDProfessor Alain Deloche, MD, well-known cardiovascular surgeon, currently head of the cardiovascular surgery department at the European Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris, was born in 1940.
He has always been able to keep a balance between his French university and hospital career (”interne des hopitaux de Paris” in 1964, then deputy “chef de clinique”, subsequently head of cardiovascular surgery department as well as university professor and Vice-president of the Paris VI University until 2002), his widely acknowledged surgical expertise (member of the European Society for Cardiovascular Surgery and of the Academy for Surgery inter alia), his pedagogical concern evidenced by numerous publications, a professional commitment which led him to many elected offices (such as member of the governing board of the Paris VI University or coordinator for the cardiovascular sector of the European Georges Pompidou Hospital), not to mention recognitions and awards and a lasting, heartfelt and efficient humanitarian commitment.
As early as 1969, with Doctors without Borders he had co-founded, then with Medecins du Monde in 1980, he undertook to act in favor of the countries, and more precisely the children, who bear the burden of what he liked to term the place of birth injustice, the lack of medical care due to scarce resources and inadequately available skills. As President of Medecins du Monde for four years, he actively contributed to the creation of the Ho Chi Minh-City Heart Centre in Vietnam in 1992.
While pursuing his brilliant hospital and university career as well as his humanitarian involvement, in 1988, he founded the Chaine de l’Espoir and became its president 1995.
So, after organizing surgical missions to Africa and Asia in particular, aware of the need to enable countries to help themselves, to have adequately trained medical personnel as well as adapted operational structures, he successfully moved on to mobilizing financial partners, technical contributors and all the voluntary workers who made it possible to open the Maputo Heart Institute in July 2001 and the Phnom Penh Heart Center in November 2001.
In 2002, as President of the Chaine de l’Espoir and president of the Surgeons of Hope Foundation, he actively responded to recent world developments through the construction in 2005 of the French Medical Institute for Children (FMIC) in Kabul while investing a lot of energy in a highly innovative European American Training Institute for cardiac surgeons in Fann Dakar Cardiovascular Center (Africa) in 2006-2007.