Guillermo Mac Millan
Born1940 or 1941 (age 82–83)
NationalityChilean
Alma materUniversity of Chile
OccupationUrologist
Years active1976-2019
EmployerVan Buren Hospital
Known forSex reassignment surgery

Guillermo Mac Millan (born 1940/1941) is a retired Chilean urologist who worked at Van Buren Hospital in Valparaíso. He carried out sex reassignment surgery on hundreds of patients over the course of his career.

Life

Mac Millan studied at the University of Chile, where he participated in heart transplantations led by Jorge Kaplán Meyer. He began practice as a urologist in 1966.[1]

In 1976, when Mac Millan was 36 years old, a woman he had operated on for kidney cancer asked him if he could help her daughter, who was a trans woman. Using a modification of an existing technique, Mac Millan performed sex reassignment surgery on the woman's daughter. By the time a year passed, he had performed ten such surgeries, all of them for free. He initially faced criticism from colleagues, who told him that what he was doing was unnatural or immoral.[1] He went on to become the head of Van Buren Hospital's urology department.[2]

Between 1976 and 2019, Mac Millan carried out sex reassignment surgery on 448[3] to about 700 patients.[4] He had many patients from Argentina, where genitoplasty was at one time considered a mutilation punishable by imprisonment,[1] including Mariela Muñoz.[5]

Retirement

Mac Millan retired in 2019 at the age of 78.[4] At the time of his retirement, nobody in the area was qualified to replace him.[6] His intended replacement, Melissa Cifuentes, was still studying the specialization and was expected to begin work in September 2020. Van Buren Hospital suspended genitoplasties until that date.[3] The local chapter of MOVILH praised Mac Millan's work and called on the Chilean Ministry of Health to train more professionals in genitoplasty.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Fernández P., Francia (June 2018). "Cirugía de cuerpo y alma" [Body and soul surgery]. Tell Magazine (in Spanish). Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Vocación Pública: 'Me gratifica enormemente cambiar la vida de las personas'" [Public Vocation: 'It greatly gratifies me to change people's lives']. Colegio Medico de Chile (in Spanish). December 4, 2019. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  3. 1 2 "Valparaíso: Jubiló el único médico que realizaba operaciones de cambio de sexo" [Valparaíso: The only doctor who performed sex change operations retired]. Chilevisión Noticias (in Spanish). September 24, 2019. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  4. 1 2 Mayorga, Francisca (September 25, 2019). "Guillermo Mac Millan, exjefe de urología del Hospital Van Buren: "Es inmoral impedir que alguien viva mejor"" [Guillermo Mac Millan, former head of urology at Van Buren Hospital: "It is immoral to prevent someone from living better"]. La Tercera. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  5. ↑ Garabento, Lucas (November 17, 2018). "La lucha, el dolor y las conquistas de Mariela Muñoz, la mujer trans que crió 23 hijos" [The struggle, pain and conquests of Mariela Muñoz, the trans woman who raised 23 children]. infobae (in European Spanish). Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  6. 1 2 "Lamentan vacíos que deja la jubilación del reconocido urólogo Guillermo Mac Millan" [Lamenting the gap left by the retirement of renowned urologist Guillermo Mac Millan]. MOVILH (in Spanish). September 24, 2019. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
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