Miguel A. Nunez MD

September 3, 2012

Thank you for coming.

Born on February 26, 1928 in a small town in the province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba by the name of Puerta de Golpe. His father was the station chief for the railroad in the town and he grew up around trains.

As a young man he worked as an office boy for Standard Oil as they were exploring for oil in Cuba at the time. He kept with him a letter of recommendation from his supervisor there into his old age.

He went on to attend medical school at the University of Havana and graduated in 1955. After which he worked in public health and in a small town in the province of Havana by the name of Melena del Sur as a general practitioner. There he delivered babies and performed surgery. He performed hand surgery on sugar cane workers who sustained hand injuries from swinging machetes in the harvesting of the cane. He also performed eye surgery on the workers that would sustain injuries from the sharp leaves of the sugar cane.

He was successful. In 1958 he spent three months traveling Europe and the United States.

Then the Cuban revolution arrived at the end of 1958. He was quick to recognize the shortcomings of the Cuban revolution and was active in the resistance to that oppressive regime.

He started working and training in psychiatry at Mazorra, the state mental institution. During the Bay of Pigs he was on call there which shielded him from any repercussions of that failed invasion.

In Melena he was smitten by a young lady. After what he would describe as a lengthy pursuit he married her in 1965 and had two children. They made arrangements to leave Cuba and were granted permission in 1970 to depart to Spain. The day of departure arrived and none too soon. Just after the plane departed security forces were cracking down and went by his now former home to arrest him.

While in Spain he used his time to study for and pass the ECFMG, the foreign medical board.

On his arrival in Chicago in the winter of 1971 he applied for and was granted a residency in psychiatry at Rush Presbyterian. He completed two years of his residency there and transferred to Miami where he completed his final year of psychiatry at Jackson.

He subsequently became board certified in psychiatry and became a renowned and sought after expert in electroconvulsive therapy. He was an associate professor at the University of Miami. He served for several years as chairman of the department of psychiatry at Palmetto General Hospital. He continued to work in his field into his eighties.

He had a great curiosity about the world and traveled widely visiting Europe, the Middle East, Russia, China, Latin America, Canada and throughout the U.S. including Alaska.

He worked hard to put his children through the best schools and through medical school.

He was always a man of action. When presented with problems he was always quick to act - to take the bull by the horns and never shy away from hard work. He was always mindful of other's needs ahead of his own - even to a fault. He was a loving and caring husband and a great father. A life well lived.

I will leave you with a hymn from the Liturgy of the Hours used at Vespers.

Darkening night the land doth cover:

Day is over:

We give thanks, O thou most high:

While in song we now adore thee,

And implore thee

For the light that doth not die.

Like a day our short life lasteth;

Soon it wasteth;

Cometh surely its sad eve:

O do thou that eve enlighten,

Save and brighten;

Nor old age of joy bereave.

Come no pain nor pity near it:

Bless and cheer it,

That in peace our peace we win:

As thou wilt, do thou us gather,

Gracious Father,

Freed at last from shame and sin.

Now we pray for rest, that sleeping

In thy keeping,

We may joy in thy sun's ray:

So through death's last darkness take us,

So awake us

To the light of heaven's day.