Iván F. González Cancel is a cardiovascular and heart transplant surgeon credited for having performed the first heart transplant surgery in Puerto Rico. Early life He was born in 1960 in municipality of Utuado, Puerto Rico. He lived in Utuado until the age of 10, when the González Cancel family decided to move to Bayamon, PR. It was in Bayamon where the young Iván González Cancel studied fifth and sixth grade. In 1970 his family had move once again, this time to the community of Levittown in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. He conducted all his elementary, and high school studies in the Public School System of Puerto Rico. Education In 1977 he was admitted to the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. He excelled as an undergraduate student and in 1980 enrolled in the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. During his medical studies he decided to become a Surgeon and in 1989 joined the Puerto Rico Medical Center Surgery Residency Program. After being told that at that time becoming a Cardiovascular Surgeon was impossible and that he should forget about it; in 1989 he joins the Cardiovascular Surgery faculty at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. After completing his training in Cardiovascular Surgery he decides to pursue a fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh in Heart and Lung Transplant. Return to Puerto Rico and the First Heart Transplant in Puerto Rico In 1993 after completing his training in mainland United States he returned to Puerto Rico to practice as a Cardiovascular and Heart Transplant Surgeon. It is in 1999 when he makes history by conducting the first heart transplant surgery in Puerto Rico. On June 27, 1999, Dr.Iván González Cancel along with a group of healthcare professionals performed the surgery which took 3 hours and 17 minutes at the Cardiovascular Center of Puerto Rico. Among the group of physicians that participated in the successful surgery were: Dr. Héctor Banchs Pieretti, Dr. Cid Quintana, Dr. Rolando Colón, Dr. Héctor Delgado Osorio and Dr. Efraín Defendini. Mr. Laureano Cora Solis, 52 years old and resident of Arroyo, Puerto Rico was the patient to receive the transplanted organ donated by the family of Arlyne Odette Acevedo Molina—a woman from Hatillo, Puerto Rico who was the victim of a fatal car accident. Legacy Since then, Dr. González Cancel and his team have conducted a total of 125 heart transplants in