Obituary: Paulo Bettencourt 1965–2021

Abstract

Professor Paulo Bettencourt left us on 4 September 2021 in his sleep, as silently as he lived. He left many projects undone, many patients to help, and still a lot to give to medicine and medical science and research. Paulo was born on 12 March 1965, he grew up in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal where he attended the Eça de Queirós high school. Bright and hardworking, qualities that he kept until the day of his death, he easily graduated from Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto (FMUP) in 1989. While still a medical student, he was junior Assistant of Anatomy in the same institution. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Hospital São João, Porto in 1996. Paulo earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Medicine in 2001 at FMUP, the institution where he later became invited full professor, with a forerunner thesis on the role of natriuretic peptides in heart failure (HF). Paulo was a creative and exceptional member of the Cardiovascular Research and Development Unit of FMUP. Fascinated for the disease complexity and multisystemic nature of HF, he dedicated