International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

FIGO is sad to report the death of its former President Professor José Aristodemo Pinotti. Professor Pinotti was born on 20th December 1934, and was the son of a Brazilian Dental Surgeon (his mother being a Sanitary Educator). According to those that knew him well, the young Pinotti enjoyed a childhood within a family devoted to Medicine and Health Care. He graduated in Medicine at the Sao Paulo University Medical School and afterwards became a fellow on the Pérola Byington Hospital residence programme for Gynaecology and Obstetrics. He continued his postgraduate training at places like Firenze, Milan (at the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori) and Paris (at the Institute Gustave Roussy). On returning to Brazil, Pinotti spent his entire academic career at Unicamp (State University of Campinas) and USP (State University of Sao Paulo).  Professor Pinotti was one of the rare examples of individuals combining active medicine at an excellent level with politics, being successful in both areas. He was: 

• Head Professor and Director of the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), 1972 – 1982;
• Executive Director, Centre for Integral Assistance to Women's Health (CAISIM), State University of Campinas [Sao Paulo], 1987 – 1991;
• President of the State University of Campinas [Sao Paulo], 1982 – 1986;
• President of the Brazilian Association for Human Reproduction and Maternal-Infantile Nutrition (RENUM), 1975 – 1986;
• Minister of Education, State of Sao Paulo, 1986 – 1987; and
• Minister of Health, Coordinator of the Unified and Decentralized System of Health (SUDS), State of Sao Paulo, 1987 – 1991.

 More recently, Professor Pinotti was Head of Gynaecology and President of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Council at the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine, and, in 2002, became Federal Congress Representative of Sao Paulo at the Brazilian Congress.        Professor Pinotti was renowned as the author of numerous scientific reports and textbooks, many of them distributed throughout Latin America, Portugal and Spain. These covered topics ranging from the relationship between the number of ovulatory menstrual cycles and the risk of breast cancer and screening for cervical cancer to women's reproductive health generally and various surgical techniques including endoscopic vaginal suspension. He was internationally known for his work on breast cancer surgery. He also wrote poems and it was through this that he became known as a thoroughly cultivated figure in his home country of Brazil and beyond. Professor Pinotti was the first chairperson of the newly founded FIGO "Committee for the Study of the Female Breast" (1979). The establishment of that Committee was his idea, not at all without difficulties, since – according to the “History of FIGO” published in 2004 to coincide with the organisation’s 50th anniversary –US and UK gynaecologists and some others in FIGO were reluctant to include breast surgery into the field of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Pinotti's initiative, however, met strong support from continental European societies, not the least by the German Society of Gynecology and Obstetrics.  In 1985, Professor Pinotti was nominated as President-Elect of FIGO by a majority of Latin American societies, his opponent being Professor Carlos MacGregor from Mexico. He was elected FIGO President for the period 1988 – 1991. He served FIGO shortly before as President of the XII FIGO World Congress of Gynecology & Obstetrics held in late October 1988 in Rio de Janeiro.  Those who knew him agreed that Pinotti's rhetoric was multilingual and brilliant. His amiability made him many friends around the world. His duties as a representative of FIGO were nourished by his highly developed personal charisma and warm generosity. His passing will be a great loss to the medical world.