BIOGRAPHY

Afksendiyos Kalangos was born on September 11, 1960, in Agios Stefanos, Istanbul. He is the son of an old family in Istanbul. His father, Konstantin Kalangos, was a physician known as a doctor who provided free medical services to the underprivileged residents in his hometown, free of charge. After Konstantin Kalangos died in 2004, a street in Agios Stefanos was named after him in 2008.1

In 1978, Afksendiyos Kalangos completed his secondary education at "Saint Benoit French College" in Istanbul. In 1984, he graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Istanbul Cerrahpaşa with the highest graduation rank in his class. In 1991, he completed his specialization in cardiovascular surgery at the Siyami Ersek Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Training and Research Hospital. He afterward continued his postgraduate training in cardiovascular surgery with pioneering heart surgeons such as Magdi Yacoub in London from 1987 to 1988, Alain Carpentier between 1991-1993, and Yves Lecompte in Paris between 2000-2001.2,3 He holds an MBA in Health Institutions Management from the University of Geneva.

He completed his two-year compulsory service as forensic medicine physician in Giresun (Black Sea coast) between 1984 and 1986. He then worked at the Siyami Ersek Teaching and Research Hospital for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery between 1986 and 1991. In 1993, he joined the medical staff of the Clinic of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University Hospital of Geneva - Hopitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG); in 1998 he was appointed Deputy Director of the same Clinic, and in 2001 he took over the position of Director of the Clinic for cardiovascular surgery at the University Hospital and finally in 2011, he was appointed Director of the Cardiovascular Center at the University Hospital of Geneva. He kept this position until the end of 2015.

In 1995, he was appointed Associate Professor in Turkey. In 2006, he became Associate Professor, and in 2011 full professor at the University of Geneva. Between 2016-2019, he worked as the Director of the Pediatric and congenital cardiac Surgery Clinic at the MITERA Hospital in Athens, Greece.

Today he is a Full Professor of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery at Koç University Hospital in Istanbul and Director of the Center for Congenital Heart and Tracheal Diseases at Athens Euroclinic Hospital in Athens.

He was President of the World Society of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons (WSCTS) in 2014-2015 and currently serves as Treasurer of the same Society.

He is the Founder and President of the Kalangos Foundation since 2002, the Founder of the Global Forum on Humanitarian Medicine in Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery (founded in 2002), and the Co-Founder and President of the Global Heart Network (GHN) since 2011.4