George Berci was born in 1921 in Hungary. As he was growing up, fascism was becoming a threat to those of the Jewish faith. George was forced to sit in the back row in his classes and ostracized by his former friends. Eventually, he was barred from school altogether. He had to get a job to pay to attend to Jewish school.
At the age of 21, he was informed he would be required to work as a laborer under the direction of the German Army. George and others were required to work under inhumane conditions. About 30% of the people he worked with died.
An air raid near Budapest allowed him to escape and begin working for the Hungarian underground. Once the war was over, George had intentions of becoming a musician, but his mother objected. She insisted he became a doctor. And that’s what he did.
Once he graduated and qualified to become a surgeon, Dr. Berci began to explore surgical innovations. As his reputation grew, he was awarded a prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship and went to Australia, where his work led to the medical revolution of minimally invasive surgery. In 1967, he was recruited by Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where he continued his innovative work. More importantly, he began to train other surgeons in the proper use of his innovations.
While he made remarkable advances in surgical procedures, he never gave up his love of music. He and his daughter would often perform violin duets.
Dr. Berci passed away at 103 in 2024. He had continued to be active until the last month of his life.
At a time when we are using immigration as a wedge issue across America, few take the time to reflect that the tremendous advances in our society have come from those who were born elsewhere and chose America as their new home.
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“His achievements in the last 20 years of his life are probably as important as in the first 80.”—Dr. Bruce Gewertz–Surgeon in Chief Cedars-Sinai