RECENT ACTIONS

Summary of recent Medicus actions- May 2003

  1. Nemanja Stojanovic obtained a number of new monitors and insulin pens for diabetic patients and these were sent to, and received by, the University Children's Hospital in Belgrade (see letter in Serbian from Prof. Krstic, Hospital director)
     
  2. Nikac Tomanovic has continued to be very active. At the beginning of April he went with two British colleagues from Canterbury to Nis and Sofija in order to establish collaboration and to transfer techniques used in current anterior segment eye surgery (patient preparation, new methods of local anaesthesia and phacoemulsification cataract surgery).
     
  3. Vojin Sljivic established contact with the Royal Marsden Hospital and their School of Cancer Nursing and Rehabilitation on behalf of the Institute for Otorhinolaryngology and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Clinical Centre in Belgrade. The Institute would like to send a small team to the Royal Marsden to acquaint themselves with current treatment and care of patients with malignancies of the head and neck.
     
  4. Vojin Sljivic acted as advisor to the humanitarian organisation Balkan Aid in the selection of reference texts and manuals for the Institute of Gerontology, Home Treatment and Care in Belgrade (see letter in Serbian from Dr. Zikic, Institute director).
     
  5. Vojin Sljivic received a six-months run of Nature and Nature Biotechnology and sent that to the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering in Belgrade.
     
  6. Branko and Misha Brozovic continued to donate their personal copy of the British Journal of Haematology and Vojin Sljivic has been sending this to the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering in Belgrade.
     
  7. In February Vojin Sljivic prepared a box containing items 1, 4, 5 and 6 and arranged that to be taken as extra baggage and free of charge by JAT. He also prepared all the necessary paperwork for the shipment.
     
  8. Olivera Potparic, Zorica Jankovic, and Ratko Djukanovic have been working on putting together a programme for a half day meeting on "Advances in Anaesthesiology" that should be held in Belgrade in December this year as part of the symposium on "Advances in Medicine". Several British speakers have already agreed to participate.
     
  9. Gordan Vujanic, Nikola Ostojic and Ratko Djukanovic have obtained equipment from their pathology laboratories, which will be donated to hospitals in Serbia. Vojin Sljivic is looking into how to arrange collection of the equipment from three locations and its transport to Serbia.
     
  10. Srboljub Zivanovic has continued sending anatomy journals (Journal of Anatomy, Clinical Anatomy, Man and Anthropology Today) to the Institute of Anatomy of the Medical School in Belgrade. In May a one-year run of these journals was shipped to Belgrade. 
     
  11. Gordana Prelevic has continued her long-standing arrangement for senging a number of journals (Lancet, British Medical Journal, Clinical Endocrinology, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and Geriatric Medicine) to the Institute of Endocrinology of the Medical School in Belgrade.
     
  12. Gordan Vujanic has been sending the following journals: Histopathology, Journal of Clinical Pathology, and Current Diagnostic Pathology to the Institute of Pathology, Medical School, Belgrade and Medical and Pediatric Oncology and British Medical Journal to the Institute of Mother and Child in New Belgrade.

(I) The European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) (http://www.eaaci.org) after receiving a request from the Medicus generously supported an educational meeting that was held in Palić in Yugoslavia. The objective of this meeting was to help allergists and clinical immunologists in Yugoslavia to educate themselves and catch up with the latest developments in the diagnosis and treatment of allergic and systemic diseases.

This first class meeting was organised by the European Academy od Allergology and Clinical Immunology in association with the Yugoslav Association of Allergologists and Clinical Immunologists and the Medicus, under the patronage of the Belgrade School of Medicine. The local organising committee was headed by Professor Svetlana Paranos who, tragically, died after a brief illness only a few weeks before the meeting (see In Memoriam for Professor Paranos written by her colleagues from the Yugoslav Association of Allergologists and Clinical Immunologists)

The meeting was attended by more than 120 participants from Yugoslavia and also included several participants from Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. There were 8 lecturers from Europe .

Kristine Breuer  and
Martin Wagemann  from Germany
Pascal Demoly from France
Lars Poulsen from Denmark
Todor Popov from Bulgaria and
Anthony Frew, Adnan Custovic and Ratko Djukanovic from the United Kingdom

The meeting started on 12th July in the City Hall in Subotica, a beautiful turn-of the 20th centrury building.

The lecturers gave plenary lectures and ran workshops and symposia (see FINAL PROGRAM). In addition, each lecturer ran a “meet-the-professor” lunchtime seminar. All the sessions were well attended and the discussion between participants and lecturers was very fruitful.

Despite the hard work there was time for some fun. Royal Travel, an agency from Belgrade, who organised travel and accommodation, arranged a superb dinner in a restaurant situated barely a mile from the Hungarian border. The restaurant was part of a stud farm, which provided a splendid opportunity to go on a short ride in a horse carriage that took the guests from the car park to the restaurant. There was plenty of good music and everyone enjoyed themselves tremendously.

The Medicus hopes that this meeting was only the beginning of a successful reintegration of Yugoslav Allergists and Clinical Immunologists into Europe.


Pic1. some of the lecturers and local organiser of the meeting


Pic2. Dr Kristine Breuer
Pic3. Dr Martin Wagemann
Pic4. Drs Custovic, Frew and Djukanovic who did – honestly – lecture as well


Pic5.  Drs Bukulica-Nikolic and Djukanovic at the opening ceremony in Subotica City Hall


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(II) Donations of books:
The Medicus is most grateful to the Parthenon Publishing Group (http://www.parthpub.com) and its Managing Director, Mr David Bloomer, for donating a selection of books to each of the six medical schools in Yugoslavia. Parthenon is well known for its high quality medical books and atlase

(iii) Help from Yugoslav Airlines (JAT)
in London http://www.jat.com/eng/engl.html. The Medicus is grateful to JAT for kindly helping transport books and journals to Yugoslavia.

(iv)Visits by UK doctors to Yugoslavia:

  • Mr Peter Hamlyn, Consultant Neurosurgeon from Barts & Royal London and Mr Vladan Bajtajic travelled to Belgrade in June. Mr Hamlyn lectured on complex spinal surgery, cranial nerve compressive syndromes, more specifically trigeminal neuralgia. The lecture was well attended by neurosurgeons from Belgrade and Novi Sad.

  • Dr Dusan Potkonjak and Mr Ken Sprague, gave a series of seminars in psychodrama and psychotherapy in Belgrade.

  • Dr Gordan Vujanic, Consultant Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Pathology from Cardiff,  and his Consultant Pathologist colleague,  

  • Dr Anna Kelsey from Manchester, went to Belgrade in March and held a 2-day course in the “Pathology of Solid Tumours in Children”. The course was held at the Mother and Child Health Institute, Belgrade and was attended by 55 pathologists (specialists and those in training).

  • Dr Nikac Tomanović, Anaethetist from Canterbury spent several days training colleagues in Yugoslavia on methods of local anaesthesia for ophthalmic surgery. When he subsequently went to a meeting of Yugoslav Anaesthetists in Cetinje he was pleasantly surprised to see that some centres had completely adopted his recommendations and had used only local, as opposed to general, anaesthesia for ophthalmic surgery.

 

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Southampton University General Hospital, Southampton SO16 6YD, United Kingdom
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