Salvador Gil Vernet and José Maria Gil-Vernet, two generations of Spanish urologists at the 2019 AUA (American Urological Association) Congress.
During the most recent AUA congress held in Chicago from 3-6 May. Dr Michael E. Moran, Professor of Urology at the Prisma Health/University of South Carolina (USA) and Director of the William P. Didusch Center for Urologic History, gave a lecture titled: “Master open stone surgeons of the 20th century: William H. Boyce & Jose Maria Gil-Vernet”.
Dr M. E. Moran detailed the revolutionary advances made by JM Gil-Vernet in complex renal lithiasis surgery, not only through the discovery of the intrasinusal route, but also the kidney approach through the posterior vertical renal lobotomy, findings that gave rise to the beginning of minimally invasive kidney surgery.
He also highlighted the figure and scientific work of Salvador Gil Vernet as the epicentre of European scientific urology in the first half of the 20th century, and his professional relationship and friendship with North American urologists, particularly with the doctors John Hutch, Ian Thompson and Charles B. Huggins, the latter winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1966.