In 1995, in my last year of my pediatric surgery residency in Cordoba, I was offered a one- year research fellowship at the Plastic Surgery Research Laboratories (PSRL) at the University of Louisville in the USA. I accepted and moved to Louisville with my wife (a Pediatrician) and my 5-year-old daughter.
When I arrived at the PSRL in Louisville I joined 20 full-time research fellows from all over the world, each working on his/her own project and all working together helping each other on their respective projects. It was very nice for me to be part of a big team “doing research” in the United States. Before coming to Louisville, as a medical student in Tucuman, I did some research and received minimal financial support to do my work. In Louisville, it was very different, we were paid full time research fellow salaries and there was plenty of money for our immediate research projects, and to explore other new ideas when they arose, all at the highest level.
My first research project was to develop a new treatment for urinary incontinence. In a dog model, we used a muscle in the thigh, stimulated by an electrical pacemaker, to create a urinary neo-sphincter. Although the concept was very elegant and the experiments worked well in our animal model we did not achieve our ultimate goal of using it to treat patients. While we did not achieve this goal in these first experiments I discovered my true passion,
microsurgery!!!
Another research project I worked on at the PSRL in Louisville was to develop a new treatment for patients suffering with hand amputations – hand transplantation. At the time we began the research, no successful human hand transplants had yet been performed. Our laboratory led a multidiscuplinary collaboration between several departments in the university (Plastic and Transplant Surgery, Immunology, Pathology, Sociology, Ethics, etc) and a local hand surgery institute, Kleinert & Kutz Hand Care Center. While taking this concept from the laboratory to patients involved several topics the main focus of the research I was involved in was to develop a clinically feasible approach for preventing immunological rejection of the transplanted hand tissue. After 2-3 years of research we discovered a cocktail of immunosupressive medications that successfully supressed hand tissue rejection while causing minimal toxic side effect in recipients. With these findings, in 1999 our team and others in France and China performed the first successful human hand transplants. To date more than 150 human hand transplants have been performed world
wide (10 in Louisville) using largely the same immunotherapy cocktail our research found to be successful in Louisville.
What began as a 1-year research fellowship in the USA turned into 10 years, and in 2005 I became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology at University of Louisville. In 1997 I became a father to as “American” baby boy and in 2010 our whole family became
American citizens.
Over a period of 10 years doing full-time research my interest in microsurgery continued to grow and my interests began to shift from research to teaching. When I first arrived in Louisville, in order to do some of the research protocols in small animal, I took a microsurgery course at the University under the direction of Dr. Robert Acland. After taking the course, I was able to practice my newly acquired microsurgery skills on animal models in several of the research projects I was involved in. Then in 2007, the opportunity presented itself and I was offered the position of Director/Instructor of the same microsurgery course I had taken many years before. This opportunity came with many surprises. First, I never thought I would be able to teach this type of highly specialized surgical skill, and second I never thought I would enjoy microsurgery so much. As I write this I have been teaching microsurgery for more than 10 years and have taught more than 600 students from all over
the world, and I still love it!!!
In 2008, as Director of the Microsurgery teaching course, one of the first major changes I made was to take the course on the road. I now teach the 5-day microsurgery course throughout the year in Louisville, USA; Frankfurt, Germany; Dublin, Ireland; Groningen, Holland; Brussels, Belgium; and Santiago, Chile. In addition to these regular courses throughout the year, I have also taught courses in Buenos Aires and in Mexico City. Currently
80% of my time is devoted to teaching microsurgery and the rest I continue to do research.
(Briefly describe the pros and cons of living/working abroad)
The best part of living outside of Argentina has been the opportunity to conduct world-class research, and discovering my passion for teaching microsurgery. While the USA is not a paradise, I enjoy living in a place where people really believe that “anything is possible”. I also enjoy the feeling of safety, knowing that I can leave my doors unlocked at home and
when I return everything will be where I left it.
For me the worst part of living abroad, in the USA, has been having to learn English. For some people learning other languages is not a problem but for me it has been very difficult. I
feel that this has been my greatest barrier.
(What, if anything do you miss most about Argentina?)
What I regret most about living outside of Argentina has been being so far away from my family and my friends. Things like; dulce de leche, Argentine wines and meat, and tango I can find here, but my family and childhood friends, I cannot, and I miss them, mainly in the most important moments. On the other hand, my living abroad is a good excuse for them to come
visit me!!!

Other interest: (hobbies)
My “other” passion is cooking paella. On my time off I love preparing paella for friends and even strangers. I have participated and won several national paella contests.
Return to Argentina: (Do you plan to return to live/work/retire in Argentina?)

I do not think I will return to live in Argentina. After spending so many years in the USA I have become accustomed to the way of life and the wonderful feeling of safety. However, I always love to return to Argentina and when possible take my children and grandson to visit. And, of course one day I would love to be able to return to Argentina regularly, maybe to
teach microsurgery!!!