For Fernando Stuardo Wyss Quintana, MD, PhD, FACC, of Guatemala City, Guatemala, medicine has always been more than a profession. It's been a calling to serve, to step into the gap patients and families face when they're in crisis, and to build systems that outlast a single physician's career.

Wyss Quintana comes from a family steeped in medicine. His father went to medical school and then worked as a sales representative in the field. Quintana started his own medical training at 17 in Guatemala studying internal medicine, followed by his training in cardiology in Mexico and a Master's degree in Spain. He had mixed feelings about the field at first, but when he started working in the hospital his fourth year of medical school, he fell in love with medicine.

He chose cardiology because of Aldo Casteñada, MD, whose parents were Guatemalan but who grew up in Europe and spent years in Nazi Germany during the war. Casteñada eventually made his way to Guatemala and medical school and became an esteemed cardiothoracic surgeon in the U.S., ending his career at Boston Children's Hospital as surgeon-in-chief and the William E. Ladd Professor of Child Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

"I grew up hearing about him from my mother," Wyss Quintana says. "In Guatemala, he was amazing. We didn't have a lot of people out in the world making science."

Wyss Quintana knew, however, that general cardiology, not surgery, was where he belonged.

Returning to Guatemala City after residency he established his practice as a cardiologist, taking on leadership roles in both clinical care and professional education.

One of the defining aspects of his life has been his work with Shriners International and Shriners Hospitals for Children, a global health care system with hospitals, outpatient clinics, ambulatory care centers and outreach locations that provide free care to children with orthopedic and craniofacial conditions, burn and spinal cord injuries and sports medicine.

A Shriner since 2012, Wyss Quintana quickly became a leader within the organization, serving as president of Egypt Guatemala Shriners from 2016 to 2018 and again from 2023 to 2025. He now coordinates the group's medical commission, a role that allows him to align local efforts with the organization's global resources.

Wyss Quintana has sent many Guatemalan children to Shriners' hospitals for care, including after the 2017 Guatemala orphanage fire at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home in San José Pinula, in which 41 girls were killed. He was instrumental in getting 11 severely burned girls to the Shriner Hospital in Galveston, TX, for surgery.

A year later, the country's Fuego volcano erupted, killing nearly 200 people. Shriners Hospitals for Children sent an emergency medical team to the scene and Wyss Quintana was involved in the effort to airlift six children to the hospital in Galveston.

Beyond his own practice and his work with the Shriners, Wyss Quintana has been extremely involved in the foundational work of building and leading Latin American medical societies, including the Pan American Endothelium College; the Inter-American Society of Cardiology; the Central American and Caribbean Society of Hypertension and Cardiovascular Prevention; and the Latin American Society of Hypertension.

And yet he still manages to see patients. How does he do all this, including extensive global travel?  "I've slept two to three hours a night since I was 18," he said. "I am a night human being." He is also, he admits, a workaholic, much to the chagrin of his wife and daughter.

Yet he has no plans to slow down on either the clinical or the service side, which epitomizes why he chose medicine. "To help other people; to contribute to a healthy life. Service is what we can do for the people."

A Lifetime of International Service

Earlier this year, Wyss Quintana was the recipient of ACC's 2025 International Service Award, recognizing his commitment to continuing education, the exchange of knowledge and inspiring young health care professionals to reach their full potential.

"This is a great honor for me, when somebody calls me and tells me you're have a won the International Service Award," he says. "And, you know, I think, 'OK, this is amazing, because I'm a Guatemalan guy living in Guatemala, a poor country. I never imagined this would happen and that our work would be seen beyond our borders.'"

Keywords: Cardiology Magazine, ACC Publications, Delivery of Health Care, Internal Medicine, Quality of Health Care