Marko Turina

Marko Ivan Turina was born in Zagreb on 23 January 1937. He completed primary and secondary school in the city and graduated from the Medical Faculty of the University of Zagreb in 1961. Accounts of his life say he was an outstanding student who saw no future for himself in communist Yugoslavia, and he left for Switzerland.

From 1962 he worked at the University Hospital Zurich, training in surgery under the Swedish pioneer Ake Senning. His early posts included: - Surgical resident in Flawil and Zurich, 1962 to 1965 - Research fellow in biochemistry, University of Zurich, 1966 to 1967 - Fellow in cardiology, University Hospital Zurich, 1967 to 1968 - Assistant research surgeon, University of California, San Diego, 1969 to 1970 - Visiting fellow, Department of Surgery, Birmingham, Alabama, 1970

In the United States he developed the infant pump oxygenator, which EACTS credits with making the first open-heart operations on infants possible.

Turina became a staff surgeon at the University Hospital Zurich in 1972 and head of its division of experimental surgery in 1976. In 1977 he became the first surgeon in the world to implant an artificial heart outside the chest, and he was among the first to operate on a congenital heart defect in a newborn. His work focused on heart transplantation and the development of the artificial heart.

He was appointed associate professor in 1982 and in 1985 became full professor and director of the Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery. From 1990 he also led cardiac surgery at Zurich's Triemli City Hospital, and from 1999 he chaired the university hospital's Department of Surgery. He served as dean of the medical faculty of the University of Zurich in the 1990s.

He retired under Swiss rules in 2004. His retirement came shortly after a patient died following a heart transplant at the hospital in which an organ of an incompatible blood type was used; a Zurich court later found Turina and two other doctors guilty of negligent homicide.

In retirement he lectured on cardiac surgery around the world and still operated on particularly complex cases into his seventies. He was a full professor at the medical faculty in Osijek and played an important part in building the Magdalena Clinic for cardiovascular diseases in Krapinske Toplice, Croatia.

Turina was a co-founder of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) in 1986 and its first secretary general. He was president of the association from 2001 to 2002 and editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.

In 2003 he launched the Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery as its founding editor. It was his idea that EACTS should use the growing video capabilities of the internet to publish a step-by-step manual of operations, and that it should be free to every user regardless of membership or nationality.

He published a large body of scientific work and was a member and president of many medical societies. He was elected a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1992 and was decorated with the Croatian Order of Danica.

Marko Turina died in Zurich on 6 November 2026, aged 89. No cause of death was made public.

His death was announced on 9 November by the Magdalena Clinic, which said it had received the news with great sadness and that through his professional work, mentoring and generous sharing of knowledge he had left a deep and lasting mark on the clinic and on Croatian cardiac surgery. It was reported by Jutarnji list, Vecernji list and tportal. On 10 November EACTS published a tribute describing him as a giant of cardiac surgery and a defining figure in the history of the association.

Turina is remembered as one of the pioneers of modern cardiac surgery, known for technical excellence, masterful operating skills and strong patient outcomes. EACTS said his vision, exacting standards and tireless commitment helped build the association, and that the surgeons he trained had a great impact on the specialty.

In October 2025, at the 39th EACTS Annual Meeting, he received the EACTS Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his innovative contributions to cardiac surgery and his role in founding the association. The free Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery he launched remains one of the association's journals.