This amazing Greek defines humanity and filotimo. He has received various awards and has been named the “Modern Missionary of Medicine”. However, he is not interested in titles, awards, or money. Dr. Afksendiyos Kalangos loves to save lives and restore the smiles of desperate poor children with heart problems. Dr. Kalangos has performed over 15.000 surgeries in the last decade to poor children all over the world for FREE. He is the Head of the Department of Cardiac Surgery at the University Hospital of Geneva.
In 1998, Dr. Afksendiyos Kalangos founded the charity institution «Coeurs pour tous» (Hearts for All), and since then he is surrounded by a group of surgeons with common ideals, offering valuable medical services to people in need around the world.
He graduated in 1984 at the age 23, from the American Medical Faculty of Istanbul, he specialized himself in surgery in London and then he spent five additional years of study in order to be devoted to heart surgery for children and babies in Paris and in the U.S. Eventually he became a professor at the University of Geneva at his early 40s.
He loves the smell of cinnamon and he always has a bottle of it in his office. He says that cinnamon regenerates him, but it also reminds him of the place of his origin Constantinople.
As a son of a doctor, his father was a physician, head physician of the paediatric hospital in Istanbul Baloukli, he followed his father’s words, to make his life’s goal the works and not the money. It’s no wonder that a road in Istanbul has been named after his father, who died in 2004, having completed 65 years of devotion to patients. “A man, who could cure any disease” as the Turks say even today.
As a son of a doctor, his father was a physician, head physician of the paediatric hospital in Istanbul Baloukli, he followed his father’s words, to make his life’s goal the work and not the money. It’s no wonder that a road to Istanbul has been named after his father, who died in 2004, having completed 65 years of devotion to patients. “A man, who could cure any disease” as the Turks say even today!
