Anaesthesiology and resuscitation in The Central Army Hospital in Prague (1948–1972)

Overview

The Central Army Hospital is the medical facility where the development of anaesthesiology to a higher medical specialization in Czechoslovakia began. On 1st January 1948 General J. Skvaril, MD, the chief of the Army Medical Services, set up in The First Army Hospital – later The Central Army Hospital – the first Department of Anaesthesiology in Czechoslovakia. The medical staff of this department provided anaesthesia for all the surgical departments of the hospital. More than that they devoted themselves to the education of students at the 2nd Medical Faculty of the Charles University, to the research within the framework of the Special Part of the State Research Plan, and to the postgraduate education of physicians in anaesthesiology in the Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education in Prague.The high professional standard of anaesthesiology in The Central Army Hospital contributed significantly to the remarkable results achieved in neurosurgery, thoracic and abdominal surgery, cardiac surgery, maxillo-facial surgery and otorhinolaryngology. The journey of the Department of Anaesthesiology to opening their “own” IT beds on 22nd November 1981 was hard and prolonged. A definite solution to this problem was achieved later in the new surgical pavilion for surgical specialities in the 1990s. From the early 1960s to the 1980s I was the head of the State Research Framework “Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation in Extraordinary Conditions”. The Framework was divided into separate research tasks completed by physicians and technicians in selected medical and technical facilities. An important part of my task was the training of civilian reserve-physicians for the military function of “Physician with erudition in anaesthesiology” for use in extraordinary conditions. This programme went on for 20 years. Thanks to their hard scientific and research work, 2 Doctors of Medical Sciences, 4 Candidates of Medical Sciences, 2 Professors, 2 Associated Professors and 4 Lecturers in Anaesthesiology came out of the Department of Anaesthesiology in The Central Army Hospital in Prague.

Key words:
history of anaesthesiology – military medicine – research – education