This article is to commemorate and celebrate achievements of Professor Milan Šamánek who passed away on 29 April, 2020. Milan was an excellent and visionary paediatric cardiologist who helped to establish paediatric cardiology as a speciality in Czechoslovakia and several other east European countries in the late 1970s. Milan was also paramount for connecting the East and West, helping in no small way to establish the Association for European Paediatric Cardiology (AEPC) as the leading learned society in Europe.
Keywords: History; organisation; paediatric cardiology; prenatal cardiology.