TÜBA Member Prof. Kalayoğlu Has Passed Away
TÜBA Honorary Member Prof. Dr. Münci Kalayoğlu passed away at his home in Istanbul on November 17.
A memorial ceremony was held on November 19 at Koç University Health Sciences Topkapı Campus for Prof. Kalayoğlu, who was among the “20 Most Innovative Pediatric Surgeons Alive” having performed over 1500 transplants to date. After the funeral prayer at Zincirlikuyu Mosque on the same day, he was buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.
We wish Allah's mercy to Prof. Kalayoğlu and our condolences to his family, loved ones and the scientific community.
Who is Prof. Münci Kalayoğlu?
He was born in 1940 in Ankara. In 1963, he took the exam of Ankara University Faculty of Medicine and successfully passed. After graduating from Ankara University Faculty of Medicine, he entered Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine and studied general surgery as İhsan Doğramacı's assistant. He then completed a surgical internship at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York between 1967 and 1968. Between 1968 and 1970, he completed his specialty studies in pediatric surgery at Pittsburg Children's Hospital.
After completing his education in the USA, he returned to Türkiye and started working as an assistant professor in Pediatric Surgery at Hacettepe Medical Faculty in 1971. He became an associate professor a year later and a professor in 1977.
He started the Liver Transplantation Program at the University of Wisconsin in 1983 and directed it for 25 years. He performed over 1,500 transplants, including the first liver transplant in Wisconsin, the first reduced (adult-to-child) liver transplant, the first “cluster” transplant, the first adult-to-adult live liver transplant, the first pediatric liver transplant, and the first liver transplant for the youngest sick child in the state. He contributed to the development of the Wisconsin solution, which allows the liver to be kept alive outside the body for more than 20 hours.
In 2006, Prof. Dr. Münci Kalayoğlu returned to Türkiye and was elected as a TÜBA Member in 2010, and was considered one of the best surgeons in the world.