Marko Turina 1937 – 2026

Biography

Marko Turina was a Croatian and Swiss cardiac surgeon regarded as one of the giants of his specialty. Born in Zagreb on January 23, 1937, he studied medicine at the University of Zagreb and trained in surgery in Zurich under Åke Senning, with a year at the University of California, San Diego. In 1985 he became professor and director of the Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery at the University Hospital Zurich, later serving as dean of the medical school. He was among the first surgeons to operate on congenital heart defects, and in 1977 he performed the world’s first implantation of an artificial heart outside the chest. He co-founded the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, serving as its first secretary general and as president in 2001–2002, and received its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025. He died on November 6, 2026, aged 89.