Serving the public since 1954
When Dr. Paul David founded the Montreal Heart Institute in 1954, he created a profoundly human-focused institute right from the start. For 45 years, he was the heart and soul of this institute. When he died in 1999, he left his successors with an invaluable legacy.
Dr. Paul David, pioneer
Dr. Paul David gave Montréal, Quebec and Canada a model cardiology institute.
Born in 1919, Paul David studied medicine at Université de Montréal and graduated in 1944. Encouraged to specialize in cardiology during his residency at Hôpital Notre-Dame, he spent a year in Boston with Dr. Paul Dudley White, a renowned North American cardiologist.
The following year, he studied with eminent professors Pierre Soulié and Jean Lenègre at the Hôpital Lariboisière in Paris. When he came back to Montréal in 1947 , he immediately began applying what he learned from his exceptional training in the United States and France. With the foresight of the impending boom in modern cardiology, he developed a project—which was very cutting-edge for the time—to create an institute that was entirely dedicated to this field. Decades later, it is not surprising to see the Montreal Heart Institute's unique place at the crossroads of the American and French cardiology traditions.