Named Lecture
The Named Lecture was created to honour titanic names in Medicine who inspired their students to learn and to create through their altruism and excellence. In this fifth edition of the SKY Meeting, we decided to praise Professor José Eduardo Pinto da Costa, who we consider a great master, tutor and holder of an astonishing curriculum – a colossal person, both intellectually and humanly. To fulfil this remarkable task we shall present the audience with the fittest speaker for this session, Professor Maria José Costa, a colleague, follower and closest of Professor Pinto da Costa.
To be a professor… is to be remembered by the future!
José Eduardo Lima Pinto da Costa was born in Cedofeita, Porto, on April 3, 1934, in a family of the upper bourgeoisie of Porto. He was the eldest of the 6 children of the couple José Alexandrino Teixeira da Costa (1910-1977) and Maria Elisa Bessa Lima de Amorim Pinto (1913-1997). His grandfather Honório Lima (1856-1939), whom he greatly admired, left him with a taste for the Arts, namely music and painting. Of his five brothers, the most popular one is Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, president of Futebol Clube do Porto.
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In the academic year 1953-1954 José Eduardo enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, which he attended until 1960, the year in which he completed his degree in Medicine with the thesis “Death by the Action of Carbon Oxide”, a medical-legal study rated 18 and quoted in the Interpol magazine. As a final average of the course, he obtained 16 values and the diploma was awarded to him on October 17, 1960.
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In 1961 he was appointed assistant for Forensic Medicine and Forensic Toxicology (1961-1974). In the meantime, he did a postgraduate course in the Legal Medicine course in Porto and got his doctorate (1973).
From Assistant Professor he became Assistant Professor, and then successively to Associate Professor (1979) and Full Professor (1996), at the Faculty of Medicine of Porto.
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In 1975, he was appointed deputy director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Porto, an institution he began to direct the following year.
At the end of the 1980s, he was elected the first president of the College of Forensic Medicine of the Ordem dos Médicos, and chaired the Superior Council of Legal Medicine (1988-1998).
He was honored to be the first Portuguese to be chosen for the vice-presidency of the International Academy of Legal Medicine and Social Medicine (1985-1991), at a general meeting that took place in the Hungarian capital.
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He taught at several Portuguese faculties, in addition to the Faculty of Medicine of Porto. He was responsible for the institution of the Master’s Degree in Legal Medicine at the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences, a course created in 1999. He has supervised multiple doctoral theses, organized three international congresses, and has also coordinated and chaired the 9th Meeting of the International Academy of Forensic Medicine, the only one held in Portugal, in the city of Vila Real. He prided himself on having performed around 30,000 autopsies over the course of his career.
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In parallel with academic activities and the practice of Medicine, he was also linked to sports associations. He played football at Futebol Clube Infesta between 1960 and 1962, was part of the clinical staff of Futebol Clube do Porto from 1970 to 1971, chaired the General Assembly of the Portuguese Hockey Federation (2008-2012) and the Boxing Association. He also dedicated himself to the areas of Culture, Education and Justice and to public and civic intervention, despite his passion being Medicine.
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In 1997, he left the General Practice to dedicate himself exclusively to Legal Medicine (teaching, scientific research and expertise).
This biggest name in Legal Medicine was a member of dozens of national and international scientific societies, and author of numerous books and opinion articles, published in various media.
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He was married to Maria José Carneiro de Sousa Pinto da Costa, Professor of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Toxicology at the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences and coroner at IMML.
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He was father of 4 children.
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He declared himself against “abortion and in favor of women” and considered that women are superior to men, in biological terms, which is reflected in their ability to play various roles and in their greater longevity. He found euthanasia admissible if it were the result of a will expressed over a significant period of time.
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José Eduardo Lima Pinto da Costa passed away on December 8, 2021 at the age of 87.