Professor Radana Königová Prize awards

On June 4, 2021, a meeting of the Committee of the Society of Burns Medicine of the Czech Medical Society of Jan Evangelista Purkinje was held in Brno. One extraordinary item was included in the programme agenda – the ceremony of awarding the Professor Radana Königová Prize to the honoured personalities for the years 2019 and 2020, and retrospectively also for the year 2015. Due to long-term constraints related to the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 disease, it was not possible to use the Society's annual conferences for this official occasion. The festive framework and importance of this event was documented by the presence of the representatives of the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University in Brno, Dean Prof. Martin Repko, MD, PhD, and Vice-Dean Prof. Zdeněk Kala, MD, PhD.   

The Prize bears the name of the pioneer; a founder of burns medicine, world-renowned Prof. Radana Königová, MD, CSc., who passed away in 2014. Since 2015, the Committee of the So­ciety of Burns Medicine bestows this Prize upon a person or organization that has greatly contributed to the development, promotion or reputation of burns medicine in the Czech Republic and abroad, and/or as manifestation of respect to the personalities who follow the profound ethical and humanitarian legacy of Prof. Königová by their acts. The Czech Society of Burns Medicine also values the results of scientific research work as well as benefits for clinical practice in prevention, pathology, comprehensive treatment, and rehabilitation of patients with burns injuries (Tab. 1).

The first recipient of the award was Yvona Kaloudová, MD in 2015, awarded during the annual conference of the Society in Velké Bílovice. However, the material representation of this prize in the form of a crystal obelisk with a 3D portrait of Prof. Königová had not been made at that time and could only be handed over now. In accordance with the nomination criteria, the prize was awarded for lifetime contribution to the field of burns medicine.

Dr. Kaloudová joined the 3^rd Department of Surgery of the Trauma Hospital in Brno – Ponávka in 1984, where she worked as a general surgeon and simultaneously at the Emergency Rescue Service. In 1989, together with several colleagues who were involved in the treatment of burns, she moved to the Bohunice Hospital, where the Burns Centre, the forerunner of today’s Department of Burns and Plastic Surgery, had been established. She devoted her entire professional career to this department and has been working there as the head of the divisions of standard and intermediate care since 1995. She worked in the committee of the Society of Burns Medicine for 18 years. She is a member of the European Burns Association (EBA) and the International Society for Burn Injuries (ISBI). She is a regular speaker at national and international conferences and has published numerous scientific reports. Dr. Kaloudová has contributed significantly to the development of professional guidelines for the treatment of burns in pre-hospital care. She was active in the campaign for prevention of childhood burns injuries. She has been involved in training young doctors and nurses for a long time. She is an example of a physician fully committed to her field and her patients.

The 2019 awardee was Prof. Pavel Brychta, MD, CSc., a renowned personality of Czech burns medicine and plastic surgery. He has been working in the field continuously since 1987. After the establishment of the workplace in the Bohunice University Hospital, he has gradually passed through all positions from a secondary physician, through the deputy chief and later the head of the Centre for Burns, to the head of today’s Department of Burns and Reconstructive Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University, which he has established and led since 2001. Despite complicated postgraduate training, he managed to build a stable multidisciplinary team. He is a supervisor of postgraduate medical education. Under his supervision, seven PhD students defended their dissertations and one habi­litation procedure was held. Prof. Brychta is very active in lecturing and publishing, he is the author and co-author of seve­ral monographs, including international ones. He has been the principal investigator of three major grant projects in the field of burns treatment research, one of which led to the gaining of a patent (cultured epidermal graft).  Prof. Brychta is a member of several national and international professional societies. He has been a member of the Society of Burns Medicine since its inception, a long-standing member of the Committee, and was the Chairman between 2011 and 2017. He is a member of EBA, where he served on the Committee as Secretary, Vice-pre­sident and President (2009–2011). He is a member of ISBI where he served as Vice-president in 2008–2010. His conti­nued and versatile professional activities and involvement in the Societies of Plastic Surgery, Aesthetic Surgery, the So­ciety of Hand Surgery and the Society of Aesthetic and Laser Medicine have contributed significantly to the interconnected activities of several closely related surgical specialties along with burns medicine. He managed to achieve a similar interconnection in the organisational structure and functional content of the Burns Department in Brno. In this way, he represents burns medicine in the Czech medical environment, in public and in international professional circles.  

The 2020 awardee was  Assoc. Prof. Leo Klein, MD, CSc., a significant persona­lity of Czech burns medicine, plastic surgery and military medicine. He first encountered the treatment of burns at the surgical department of the Military Hospital Olomouc in 1976. In 1984, he moved to the Department of Military Surgery and the Second Department of Surgery of the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University and the Teaching Hospital in Hradec Králové, where the division of plastic surgery and burns treatment was newly being established. He started building the division and especially the functionally integrated burns unit from the very beginning. Within a few years, technical facilities and an interdisciplinary team were built up. The spectrum and numbers of patients treated were expanded, and in the late 1980s and 1990s the division served as a regional burns unit. After the Czech Republic joined NATO, Brig. Gen. Dr. Klein was sent abroad for a mission in 1999–2002, where he served as Medical Advisor to the Commander and Chief of the Medical Branch of the NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium. Between 2004 and 2008, he served as Head of the Department of Burns Medicine of the 3^rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and Teaching Hospital Královské Vinohrady in Prague. Upon his return to his original workplace in 2008, he has been still working in Hradec Králové. Assoc. Prof. Klein is a member of several domestic and international professional societies. He is a founding member of our Society, where he has been a committee member for many years. He was the National Representative since 1994 and also the Regional Representative for Europe in ISBI in ­2012–2014. He is a member of the EBA where he served three terms in the Executive Committee (2011–2017). He has authored and co-authored several monographs, numerous publications, and has conducted research projects and made more than 300 oral presentations. He has been intensively involved in teaching activities and has contributed to the training of several generations of young physicians. He serves on the editorial boards of national and foreign professional journals and is an external reviewer of other periodicals. Assoc. Prof. Klein has made a significant contribution to the representation of the field of burns medicine at home and abroad, in the conditions of civilian and military health care. He is an active promoter of Prof. Königová’s legacy.

After the award ceremony, both representatives of the Faculty of Medicine held salutary speeches, in which they emphasized, among other things, the excellent cooperation of the Burns Centre in Brno with all clinics and departments within the Trauma Centre and the Faculty of Medicine of the Masaryk University. They also expressed their appreciation of the work of the Society of Burns Medicine, and its committee, in the context of the Czech Medical So­ciety of J.E. Purkinje and Czech medicine as such.

On behalf of the entire Society of Burns Medicine, the members of the Committee thank all of the awardees (Fig. 1) for their work and wish them every success in their future life and work.

Monika Tokarik, MD, PhD

Chairwoman, Committee of the Society of Burns Medicine CMS JEP

Dept. of Burns Medicine

University Hospital Královské Vinohrady

Šrobárova 50

100 34 Prague

Czech Republic

 e-mail: monika.tokarik@fnkv.cz