Dr. Leopoldo "Leo" Zorrilla Rios

Leopoldo “Leo” Zorrilla Rios, age 83, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 at his home in San Antonio, Texas surrounded by his family and loving caregivers. He was born on June 29, 1941 in Mexico City, Mexico to Leopoldo and Estela Zorrilla. He was preceded in death by his parents; brother, Miguel Zorrilla; wife, Esther Zorrilla, as well as his uncle, Fernando Zorrilla; cousins, Emilio Zorrilla and Margarita Zorrilla Miles; and nephews, Amshel Zorrilla and Eduardo Miles Zorrilla. Leo is survived by his brother, José Manuel Zorrilla; children, Aida Zorrilla, Monica Zorrilla Kosterlitzky, Miguel "Mike" Zorrilla and daughter-in-law, Alexia Marcoux Zorrilla; and his grandchildren whom he profoundly adored, Emi Kosterlitzky, Gabriel Zorrilla and Tenzin Zorrilla.

In 1957 at the age of sixteen, Leo was introduced to medicine by his mentor and uncle Fernando, an anesthesiologist in Mexico City whom he often accompanied to visit patients. Leo soon fell in love with the discipline. Over the next fifteen years, he devoted himself to becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon.

While attending Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, he fell in love with a fellow medical student, Esther, whom he married in 1965. During their courtship, Leo would often ride his family’s horse across Mexico City to visit Esther at the convent where she boarded while attending medical school. It was in Leo’s final year of medical school that his journey to San Antonio began when his classmate, Alvin Blumberg, a student from Texas who had been given room and board by Leo’s parents, encouraged Leo to accompany him on a road trip to San Antonio to interview for a residency position at the Robert B. Green Hospital.

While Leo had never traveled outside of Mexico, he took a leap of faith by joining his good friend to pursue a vastly different life in the US. During his residency, he discovered his passion for heart surgery and set his sights on becoming a resident of the Denton A. Cooley Fellowship program at the Texas Heart Institute. This was the pinnacle of his medical training and led to a lifelong friendship with Dr. Cooley. Grateful for Cooley’s decades of mentorship, Leo was honored to be a founding member of The Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society in 1972 along with eighteen former trainees. He was equally honored to become the society’s president in 1978.

With his wife and three children, Leo returned to San Antonio to establish the city’s first cardiothoracic practice with his dear friend and associate, Alfonso “Chico” Chiscano. Leo performed the first open-heart surgery in 1976 at Methodist Hospital on a nineteen year old patient from Monterrey, Mexico. This led to the formal opening of the Methodist’s Intermediate Coronary Care Unit, which Leo and his colleagues inaugurated with the ribbon cutting ceremony. Twenty-five years later, Leo was named surgical director of the Texas Transplant Institute.

Throughout his fifty-one year career, Leo experienced both the joys and heartbreaks of his profession. His devotion to his patients and their families was authentic and heartfelt, touching hearts and lives beyond the operating room. His colleagues, patients, family and friends describe him as a masterful physician and surgeon known for his excellence, kindness, compassion and grace.

Having had the privilege of presiding over ten thousand open heart surgeries, what Leo valued most were the meaningful conversations with patients and the friendships he developed with them and their loved ones. Aware of the emotional complexities of his profession, Leo was not only grateful for the opportunity to enhance the quality of a patient’s life, but also recognized his and his profession’s limitations. He experienced deep personal pain when unable to save a patient’s life by sharing in the family’s sorrow in the midst of loss. As a person of faith, Leo often recalled the first time he operated without the chief resident at his side. It was in that moment that he placed his trust in God to guide his hands.

Leo deeply cherished his family, profession and music. Had he not devoted his life to medicine, he would have pursued another childhood dream to become a symphony conductor. As a child, he would stand in his father’s bathroom listening to a German Grundig radio while conducting in front of the mirror. Leo’s dream of conducting was ultimately fulfilled in the operating room, and classical music continued to fill his life with great joy. Known to play classical music while performing open heart surgery, Leo was devoted to supporting San Antonio’s music community for over 45 years.

Retiring at the age of eighty-one, Leo performed his last surgery on January 2, 2023. While many have noted that Leo’s passing marks the end of an era, Leo’s legacy of devotion and compassion lives on in the hearts of family, friends, colleagues, patients and the communities he lovingly served.

Te queremos mucho Papá Polo and we promise we will continue to always support and love one another.

In remembrance of Leo’s love for classical music, memorial contributions can be made to Musical Bridges Around the World. https://musicalbridges.org/donation-in-memory-of-dr-leopoldo-zorrilla/? segmentCode=DLZ040925

A Celebration of Life will be held 11:00am, Saturday, April 26, 2025 at Oak Hills Church, 19595 W. IH10 Frontage Road, San Antonio, Texas, 78257