Luisa Massimo (22 December 1928 – 5 October 2016) was an Italian pediatrician. From 1972 to 1997 she was the director of the 4th Division of Pediatrics (Hematology and Oncology) of the Children's Hospital Istituto Giannina Gaslini of Genoa. From 1998 she is director emeritus. She is internationally considered one of the founders of Pediatric oncology
Since April 2003 she is consultant of Pediatric Psycho-Oncology and International Affairs. Since 1996 she is Expert Evaluator in Ethics and Clinical Bioethics of the European Commission. She taught Pediatric Oncology and Pediatric Hematology at the graduate schools of Pediatrics, of Hematology and of Oncology in the University of Genoa. From 1986 to 1994 she was President of the "IST-National Institute for cancer research” in Genoa.
Member of several scientific commissions (national and international), has published 300 scientific works including 220 indexed on PubMed. She is an honorary citizen of Baltimore (United States), of La Paz in Bolivia, of Bogotá in Colombia, and Rochefort-du-Gard in France. She received numerous awards: among them, in 1971 the "Gianni Pauletta" for Oncology, by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, in 1991 the "American Italian Cancer Foundation's Prize for Scientific Excellence in Medicine" in New York City, in 2004 she was decorated with the Gold Medal of Italian Republic for merit of public health (Rome, Quirinale), in 2011 with the Gold Medal “Master of Pediatrics" by the Italian Society of Pediatrics.
Family and education
But in my heart, looking in the mirror the days of my life, the people I have met in any part of the world, efforts to honor the values I believe in, the choice of medicine as the reason of my life and the desire to spend myself for the youngest patients and less curable, I feel that my parents and the type of education they gave me are the basis of everything I was able to realize and appreciate
The Massimo family after the First World War was spread over several continents. Only her father settled in Genoa. They have deep roots, from Veneto and Piedmont to the United States, South Africa, several countries in Europe and South America. Luisa Massimo's great-grandfather Giovanni Battista Mantovani studied Medicine at the end of the 18th century at the University of Padua, and practiced in Rovigo. The grandfather Diodato Massimo was a painter, graduated at the famous Academia of Venice. Living at the Court of Vienna, he was considered a traitor and in 1914 interned at the Lager of Katzenau in Austria with most of his family. After his death he received great honors, a street and the conference room of the Library of Badia Polesine where he was born were named after him. Two of his paintings are exhibited at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna art museum.
The father born in Trento, great lover of classical music since his youth, after the War spent in the Lager of Katzenau, was enlisted in the Inter-Allied Commission, and remained at the Italian diplomatic service until 1923. Graduated in design, he wrote a number of articles of historical and political interest in Italy and Germany. The Piedmontese mother, despite humble beginnings, cultivated studies becoming a primary school teacher. They married in Turin on April 3, 1926. Luisa Maria Elena Massimo was born on December 22, 1928. In 1931 her sister Elena Maria Laura was born. In 1933 the father won the tender for the construction of the Institute Giannina Gaslini, defining event for the economy of the family business of building materials. In 1935 Germany began the race first persecution of the Jews and family Massimo was a lifeline for many of them. On March 13, 1938 the Nazis occupied Vienna and began the Holocaust. This tragic event also touched the family of Luisa Massimo. During the Second World War they moved in a village of the Riviera. In those years, Luisa decided to study medicine.