The 18th July 2022 was an extremely sad day for Spanish pancreatology, and for all of us who were lucky enough to know and work with Dr Luis Aparisi. Luis passed away after a long illness, which he had borne with extraordinary dignity and from which he had protected his loved ones, knowing as he did the inevitable outcome of his diagnosis.
He was born in Valencia on 27th March 1940 and graduated in Medicine in 1965 from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Valencia. After additional training in Marseilles with Professor Henri Sarles in 1975, he obtained his Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Valencia. Luis had a long research career, his lines of work covering different areas of gastroenterology and hepatology. He had 147 articles published in journals and wrote 31 book chapters, starting in the same year he graduated with a publication in the journal Medicina Española [Spanish Medicine], right up to his extraordinary and highly cited publication of Gut in 2005, based on a multi-centre study which he had masterfully led over several years.
From 1984 he was Clinical Chief of the Gastroenterology Department at Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valencia. He was one of the great pioneers of pancreatology in Spain. He always leaned towards gastrointestinal function tests during his professional career, developing rigorous and reproducible protocols according to his methodical and critical thinking. In fact, one of his first doctoral theses as director was on the diagnostic value of the para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) and fluorescein dilaurate test. Luis introduced the new functional diagnostic methods in pancreatology at Hospital Clínico de Valencia, turning his small laboratory into a reference centre for pancreatic function in Spain. He received many visiting pancreatologists there, always generously helping them to develop the tests in their respective hospitals. It was this same passion for pancreatic disease and the lack of a framework in which to share and discuss the knowledge and advances in pancreatology here in Spain which, in 1989, after exhaustively analysing the state of pancreatology at a national level along with Doctors Salvador Navarro and Gonzalo de las Heras, led him to call on the most prominent Spanish professionals in this field in recent years, to help create the conditions that could channel these needs. The result was that on 6th May 1989 in Valencia, a meeting was held with the participation of nine specialists in gastrointestinal medicine and surgery, where they agreed to found a national scientific association dedicated to studying all aspects of the pancreas. Present at that meeting were Doctors Luis Aparisi (Valencia), Fernando Borda (Pamplona), Gonzalo de las Heras (Santander), Fernando Carballo (Guadalajara), Laureano Fernández-Cruz (Barcelona), Luisa Guarner (Barcelona), Ernesto Meroño (Madrid), Salvador Navarro (Barcelona) and Miguel Pérez-Mateo (Alicante). They thus created the Asociación Nacional para el Estudio del Páncreas (ANEP) [National Association for the Study of the Pancreas]. The association was later renamed Club Español Bilio-Pancreático [Spanish Bilio-Pancreatic Club] and then, more recently, the Asociación Española de Pancreatología (AESPANC) [Spanish Association of Pancreatology]. Luis was responsible for organising two of the association's congresses, in 1992, still as ANEP, and in 2005, as the Spanish Bilio-Pancreatic Club, both held in Valencia. For decades Luis has unquestionably been a leading figure in Spanish pancreatology, and an extraordinary example as both a doctor and a scientist.
He was an honest man with high principles. He was generous and extremely well-cultured. He was also an outstanding person. Luis loved all aspects of nature. Those of us who were lucky enough to share with him not only his medical knowledge but also that other part of his fascination with nature learned with him about botany, geology or entomology and how to appreciate the beauty that nature provides us. In recent years, in addition to taking care of his family and working in his orchard and farmhouse, history and philosophy became the focus of his readings, searching with his ingrained critical thinking for the causes of current events in past history.
