We invited two prominent personalities to the “Zbrojownia” restaurant in Cracow for the PRESTIGE CLUB meeting with readers of the PRESTIGE magazine who is who. Professor of medical sciences, Mr Skalski, introduced us to the world of modern medicine, and Robert Galara, a businessman and history fan drew listeners to the history of Cieszyn Silesia.
We listened to both lectures with particular interest, because their subject matter became part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of regaining independence by Poland. Professor Skalski, presenting current achievements in the field of, practised by himself, paediatric cardiosurgery, highlighted the scale of problems related to Polish medicine in the context of world medicine progress, at the same time pointing out that Polish child-cardiac surgery has made a breakthrough in the world and nowadays not only does not differ from the world’s top, especially the American one, but is admired and considered one of the best on the globe.
To prove this thesis, the professor used the example of restoring the heartbeat of a 2-year-old girl after a 5-hour cardiac arrest. Polish physicians of this specialisation perform “miracles” in the field of artificial heart implantation. Difficult and the most complex surgical procedures in newborns and infants take place in Cracow. “A training centre with the best technologies, to which doctors from all over the world come, operates in Krakow,” said the professor. After the lecture, there was an interesting discussion.
Equally interesting was a conversation with Robert Galara referring to the history of Cieszyn Silesia during the creation of the Polish state after 123 years of Partitions, when Czech regiments entered the Duchy of Cieszyn in January 1919, and the Polish population in this area was preparing for the plebiscite. Not widely known facts supported by reliable historical knowledge of the speaker allowed the participants of the meeting to catch up with the common history of the Czechs and Poles during the creation of the foundations of the political existence of both nations.
