Eduardo Arciniegas

Eduardo Arciniegas, MD, a pioneering pediatric cardiac surgeon, scholar, devoted father, and beloved friend passed away on October 11, 2025. He was 92.

Born in Colombia in 1933, Eduardo was an exceptional student who began his medical education at the age of 16. After graduating with distinction in 1956, he served as a public health physician for one year before immigrating to the United States in 1957. After a general medical internship, he completed his general surgical residency in Worcester, Massachusetts and his thoracic surgery fellowship in Detroit, Michigan. With his new bride, Nancy Ann, he served as a surgeon in Colombia and, subsequently, as a surgical research fellow at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Upon completion of his work there, he and his beloved wife made their home and raised their sons, David and Scott, in the Detroit area.

He was appointed Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, MI, in 1970, a position in which he served for the following 21 years. He concurrently served as faculty at Wayne State University School of Medicine, where he rapidly ascended to the rank of Clinical Professor of Surgery. As an academic pediatric cardiac surgeon, he was internationally renowned for his development and refinement of surgery to correct tetralogy of Fallot and for mortality- and morbidity-reducing intra- and post-operative care techniques. He cared for thousands of patients and families during his career, to whom he devoted his life’s work. To further the work of his field and its practitioners, he published dozens of highly cited research articles and book chapters and served as sole editor of the first, and seminal, textbook on pediatric cardiac surgery, to which the pre-eminent international luminaries in the field of the time contributed. Over the 30 years of his surgical and academic career, he gave scores of scientific lectures on pediatric cardiac surgery in English and Spanish in North America, South America, and Europe. He retired from surgery and academic medicine in 1991.

In their retirement years, Eduardo and Nancy were blessed with a close relationship with their sons, daughter-in-law (Laura), grandsons, and extended family in the southern United States, Colombia, and Canada. They reveled in the company of cherished friends in the Detroit area and elsewhere in the United States and abroad, travelled internationally, and were active members of their local community of classical music and opera devotees. They were generous hosts of many gatherings of family and friends at their home in the Detroit suburbs, often featuring their own gourmet creations and selections from Eduardo’s superb wine collection. They faced all of life's challenges together, with each serving as the other's best friend and confidant until Nancy's passing in 2020. 

Eduardo then returned to Detroit, the city that he had long made his home, where his sons and friends provided him with love, support, and companionship. When new challenges in early 2025 prompted him to move to Colorado to be near family, his final months were filled with the love, support, and care of his sons, daughter-in-law, and grandsons. He passed peacefully, with his family at his side, in the late evening of October 11, 2025. He will be dearly and deeply missed by his family, his friends, and all who had the good fortune to know him.

In keeping with Eduardo’s wishes, a private memorial service is being planned. Those wishing to honor his life are welcome to make a donation in his name to a nonprofit organization serving persons with congenital heart disease and their families, a nonprofit institution serving this community in the United States or abroad, or a nonprofit classic music organization in the Detroit area.