PROF. SKARŻYŃSKI REWARDED WITH A PAPAL MEDAL

Prof. Henryk Skarżyński, a widely-known surgeon and a specialist in otorhinolaryngology, audiology and phioniatrics, was honoured by pope Francis with the Medal ‘Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice’ (For the Church and Pope). The Medal granted in recognition of engagement and work for the sake of the human being and the common wealth, on 18 October was granted to Prof. Skarżyński by cardinal Kazimierz Nycz during a ceremony in the House of Archbishops of Warsaw.

Prof. Skarżyński was the first in Poland to implant cochlear implants (1992), brainstem implants (1998), middle ear implants (2003). In the year 2002, for the first time, he elaborated and implemented a treatment program of partial deafness in adults, in the year 2004 he made an operation on the first child with this illness in the world. This method, considered as the Polish specialty, known under the name ‘Skarżyński’s method’, was implemented in a few dozen centres in the world. For its needs, Prof. Skarżyński elaborated a new type of a safe electrode which is used in cochlear implants of the modern generation. In 2008 in Kajetany, the first patient in the world was operated on with his participation, who had bilateral implants transplanted to the brainstem. The activity of Prof. Skarżyński contributed to a dynamic development of the field of auditory implants, otosurgery and audiology in Poland and in the world.

Together with his team, Prof. Skarżyński is conducting pioneering studies in the field of epidemiology and prevention of hearing damage, elaborating and implementing modern programs of screening tests in children at various age, programs of epidemiological tests and programs of modern methods of therapies and rehabilitations of damage of hearing, voice and speech. Prof. Skarżyński is an author and a co-author of over 2500 various scientific materials in Poland and abroad, as well as over 1800 works presented during scientific conferences in Poland and in the world. He is conducting a wide educational activity for students and doctors from Poland and abroad. In 1998 he became an honoured professor of Brigham Young University Provo, USA. He has been honoured twice with the honoris causa degree: in the year 2011 at the Academy of Special Pedagogy of Maria Grzegorzewska in Warsaw, and in the year 2012 – at University of Warsaw. He is a member of the most important national and foreign scientific societies, a laureate of many prestigious awards granted in Poland and abroad. One of the greatest achievements of Prof. Skarżyński for the sake of development of scientific activity, as well as clinical and didactic activity was preparing a concept, building and starting the World Hearing Centre in Kajetany near Warsaw, in May 2012.

(AA)

"Niedziela" 48/2013

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl