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Famed surgeon joins USF, switches hospitals

USF names Ruben Quintero professor and new director of maternal fetal medicine.

By LISA GREENE
Published December 7, 2005

TAMPA - One of the Tampa Bay area's most prominent surgeons, internationally known fetal surgery pioneer Ruben Quintero, has joined the medical faculty of the University of South Florida and is switching hospitals.

Quintero performs a delicate surgery to save fetal twins with a medical condition that otherwise would likely kill them while still in the womb.

Since 1996, Quintero has performed that surgery at St. Joseph's Women's Hospital in Tampa as part of a private physicians group, Florida Perinatal Associates.

But Quintero's interest in academic medicine and changing personal circumstances have led him to USF, where he has been named professor and director of maternal fetal medicine.

He will soon begin performing surgery at Tampa General Hospital, where USF's other obstetrician-gynecologists practice. Quintero said he wanted the chance to teach his surgical techniques to others, and that a university environment would give him more ability to expand his work and research.

"We've been looking to move to university for many years," he said.

Quintero's move also was influenced by his engagement to another ob/gyn specializing in high-risk pregnancies, said Mohamad "Mo" Kasti, chief operating officer at USF Health. Leaders at his old practice didn't want a husband-wife team working there, Kasti said.

"His options were to go somewhere else," Kasti said. "We didn't want to lose such a talent."

USF has hired Quintero and his fiancee, Dr. Eftichia Kontopoulos.

Kontopoulos, who will be an assistant professor, "absolutely" is qualified to be on the USF faculty without her ties to Quintero, Kasti said. She completed medical school and her fellowship at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey. She specializes in maternal fetal medicine. Her interests include prenatal diagnosis, early ultrasounds and first-trimester pregnancies, Quintero said.

Quintero agreed having spouses work together would be "inconvenient" for a small practice, but said his former partners "are my friends" and that USF provided "an ideal alternative."

Quintero said he also hopes to operate more often as well as perform new types of fetal surgeries at Tampa General.

Leaders at Florida Perinatal didn't return a call for comment. At St. Joseph's, officials said they wish Quintero well.

"We were thrilled to have him as part of our team, and respect his decision," said Kimberly Guy, chief operating officer of St. Joseph's Women's.

Quintero is known for performing endoscopic laser surgery to treat a condition called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a condition that occurs in about 5 to 10 percent of identical twins.

Identical twins receive blood and nutrients from the same placenta. In twins with the syndrome, instead of each twin receiving blood, abnormal vessels cause blood to flow from one twin to the other.

One twin is flooded with too much blood. The other is starved. Usually, both die.

Quintero is one of a handful of surgeons worldwide to use a laser to seal some of the abnormal vessels, giving the twins a chance to develop normally.

[Last modified December 7, 2005, 00:32:06]