★ For the first time, the full, unvarnished account is told of the perilous process by which Dr. Concha — with no precedent to guide him, under enormous ethical and technical pressure — snatched at seconds of life and death amid the clashing of cold instruments.

★ This book reshapes the spiritual standing of the "doctor" in contemporary society. With exquisitely fine brushwork, the author Márquez decodes Dr. Concha's forty-year career: he pulled 350 dying lives back from the gates of death, including numerous heart transplants on fragile infants and small children with almost no margin for error — setting the record for Spain's first infant transplant.

★ With the patience of a biographer and the warmth of a lifelong friend, the writer Márquez thoroughly combed and organized decades of Dr. Concha's unpublished private letters, surgical logs, and literary manuscripts, and conducted countless interviews at his bedside, deep into the night.

On May 10, 1986, at the Reina Sofía Hospital in Córdoba, a forty-three-year-old surgeon completed the first heart transplant ever performed in Andalusia. His name was Manuel Concha Ruiz, and that day — though he could not yet have fully known it — he began to write one of the most luminous pages in the history of Andalusian medicine.

Four decades later, with nearly three hundred and fifty transplants behind him — many of them performed on children — Dr. Concha's heart still beats with the same intensity, now shared among writing, sailing, the pleasures of conversation, and an untiring work of cultural patronage between Córdoba and Cádiz, his two cities of the heart. Manuel Concha con la mano en el corazón (Manuel Concha with a Hand on His Heart) reconstructs, from his own words — written and spoken — the life of a man who made of surgery a priesthood and of curiosity a way of life: the boy from Cádiz who dreamed of the sea, the resident who trained alongside the pioneers of Puerta de Hierro, the head of service who started from scratch in a newly opened hospital, and the humanist able to speak with equal passion about a transplant and a painting by Julio Romero de Torres.

These are memoirs woven by Paco Solano with the patience of a biographer and the affection of a friend, returning to the reader the emotion of a life surrendered, with both hands, to healing and to telling.

"Dr. Concha saved lives, restored hopes and smiles, gifted years to those who had all but lost them, and placed Córdoba at the vanguard of European cardiovascular surgery." — Manuel Pimentel, publisher of Almuzara

Francisco Solano Márquez

Francisco Solano Márquez Cruz was born in Montilla in 1944 and has lived in Córdoba since the age of twenty. He studied both Education (teacher training) and Journalism, and began early in news reporting at the radio stations Radio Popular de Montilla and La Voz de Andalucía in Córdoba. During the final years of the Franco regime and the democratic transition, he served as an editor at the daily Córdoba and as director of the daily La Voz de Córdoba. In the last stage of his working life he joined the Cultural Foundation of the Provincial Savings Bank of Córdoba, where he organized its publishing service and promoted numerous cultural activities. When that institution merged with Cajasur, he moved into its Cultural Foundation, remaining until his early retirement in 2000 — a circumstance that never pulled him away from his vocation, for he kept writing what he likes to call "long features," as is his habit of referring to his books. He has published some twenty books, among them Pueblos cordobeses de la A a la Z (The Towns of Córdoba from A to Z), Guía secreta de Córdoba (The Secret Guide to Córdoba), La provincia de Córdoba en el bolsillo (The Province of Córdoba in Your Pocket), Visita al Palacio de Viana (A Visit to the Viana Palace), Memorias de Córdoba (Memories of Córdoba), Córdoba de ayer a hoy (Córdoba from Yesterday to Today), Rincones de Córdoba con encanto (The Charming Corners of Córdoba), La Córdoba de Antonio Cruz Conde, el alcalde que cambió la ciudad (The Córdoba of Antonio Cruz Conde, the Mayor Who Changed the City; Almuzara, 2008), Bodegas Campos, solera de Córdoba (Bodegas Campos, the Aging Solera of Córdoba), Córdoba insólita (Unusual Córdoba), Córdoba de la bicicleta a la vespa (Córdoba from the Bicycle to the Vespa), Córdoba es patio (Córdoba Is Courtyard), and El resplandor de la inocencia (The Radiance of Innocence), as well as several tourist guides to Córdoba. He has also contributed to collective volumes, among them Cincuenta años de Córdoba a través del «Córdoba» (Fifty Years of Córdoba through the Córdoba), Los patios cordobeses (The Courtyards of Córdoba), Crónica de un sueño (A Chronicle of a Dream: The Democratic Transition in Córdoba), Enciclopedia General de Córdoba (General Encyclopedia of Córdoba), and 150 años del Gran Teatro de Córdoba (150 Years of the Gran Teatro de Córdoba). He has likewise directed the encyclopedic works issued in fascicles Los Pueblos de Córdoba (The Towns of Córdoba), Córdoba capital (Córdoba, the Capital), Colección Córdoba (The Córdoba Collection), and the revised, illustrated edition of Paseos por Córdoba (Strolls through Córdoba). The axis of his activity has always been the dissemination of the artistic and cultural values of Córdoba and its province. He is a corresponding academician of the Royal Academy of Córdoba. In 1988 the daily Córdoba named him "Cordobés del Año" (Córdoban of the Year) in the Journalism category. His sixty-year professional career was honored by the City Council in 2023 with the Gold Medal for Merit of the City.

Preamble: A Memoir of a Life of Excellence ······ 9

What Does It Feel Like to Hold a Heart in Your Hands? ······ 11
But Let Us Begin at the Beginning ······ 19
The Boy Anointed by the Salty Clarity of Cádiz ······ 23
The Cádiz of the Explosion, a Chronicle in Mourning ······ 27
An Honors Student, Matrícula de Honor ······ 33
Entering the Specialty through the (Great) Iron Gate ······ 39
The Legacy of the Pioneers ······ 45
Love at First Sight with Córdoba ······ 51
Reina Sofía Hospital, the Construction of a Future ······ 61
Steps Forward in Heart Transplants ······ 79
Cardiovascular Surgery, from the Hospital to the Faculty ······ 93
Xanit Hospital in Benalmádena, a Round-Trip Ticket ······ 99
Science and Friendship: His Go-To Cardiologists ······ 107
Anecdotes with Heart ······ 119
A Passion for Travel: From Antarctica to the Great Wall of China ······ 127
Crossing the Atlantic in a Catamaran, and Other Voyages ······ 143
The Animator and Soul of the Tertulias, Nuclei of Friendship ······ 151
Collector and Lover of Art ······ 159
Discovering Flamenco and Its Thrill ······ 163
Captivated by the Art of Bullfighting ······ 169
A Retirement Devoted to Cultural Promotion ······ 177
A Doctor with an Easy Pen: From Scalpel to Writing ······ 181
Manuel Concha's Working Day and His Vision of Medicine ······ 211
"My Great Triumph Has Been My Wonderful Family" ······ 219
A Biography Studded with Prizes and Distinctions ······ 227
A Retrospective Lecture: Forty Years Ago ······ 239
Epilogue: In Praise of Excellence ······ 247
Sources Consulted ······ 251
Acknowledgments from the Author ······ 253