“I am so privileged to be a physician; I go to work every day with no other mandate than to relieve pain and suffering and to heal the sick. What a noble calling this is.” 

DeSanctis was born in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, in 1930. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 1951 and from Harvard Medical School in 1955. DeSanctis came to the Massachusetts General Hospital as an intern in 1955, and except for two years in the Navy, he has been here ever since.  At the MGH, DeSanctis organized the first coronary care unit and served as its Director for 10 years. He was the director of Clinical Cardiology at the MGH from 1981 to 1998 and the acting chief of the Cardiac Unit from 1989 to 1991. He has played an integral role in teaching and training MGH cardiologists for the last half-century as a Harvard professor.