The conference was chaired by Professor Ireneusz Gielata, who – along with Professor Monika Ładoń and Professor Maciej Ganczar of the MUW – had come up with the idea of the event and then coordinated its organization. The symposium was inaugurated by the Rector of the MUW, Professor Rafał Krenke, and the Rector of the University of Silesia, Professor Ryszard Koziołek.
- I am deeply delighted by the fact that the symposium is taking place at our University - said Professor Krenke. - The academic environment of the Medical University of Warsaw is fairly homogenous, and even though the courses of medicine as well as medicine and dentistry are general academic degree courses, we know that what we focus here on are highly professional areas of medical education. However, we want to keep developing and to organize events such as the one we are celebrating today - he emphasized.
Expert presentations
The meeting included a number of interesting speeches. Professor Ryszard Koziołek discussed the benefits of cooperation between various departments, while Professor Małgorzata Grzegorzewska talked about how suffering had been portrayed in drama and poetry. Professor Monika Ładoń argued that medicine had a close affinity to philosophy. She drew on the work of Olivier Sacks, an English neurologist and also an excellent writer, author of the book titled The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. The symposium also included a presentation by Professor Aneta Nitsch-Osuch of the MUW, who talked about infectious diseases as seen in the past, present, and future. Already at the beginning, she emphasized that each pandemic had had its positive and negative effects. She recalled the plague, smallpox, and cholera epidemics. She also discussed the infamous Spanish flu, which took more lives than World War I, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects, which we feel to this day.
Let’s talk about books
The second part of the meeting was devoted to works newly published as part of the Ars medica ac humanitas as well as Noctes Medicae series. Both series are the joint effort of the Medical University of Warsaw and the University of Silesia. The following books were discussed:
- Dentomachia. Adam Mickiewicz i Juliusz Słowacki u dentysty (“Dental Wars. Adam Mickiewicz And Juliusz Słowacki Go To The Dentist”) by Michał Nikodem, PhD (published in Gdańsk in 2024, Vol. 5 of the Ars medica ac humanitas series)
- Sublingualis. Problemy i poetyki dyskursu medycznego w literaturze polskiej po roku 1989 (“Sublingualis. Problems And Poetics Of The Medical Discourse In Polish Literature After 1989”) by Beata Koper, PhD (published in Gdańsk in 2024, Vol. 6 of the Ars medica ac humanitas series)
- Obserwacje na temat żmij, Bachus w Toskanii (“Observations on Asps, Bacchus in Tuscany”) – by Francesco Redi, translated by Barbara Sosnowska and Professor Roman Sosnowski, with an introduction, comments, and footnotes by Professor Roman Sosnowski (published in Warsaw in 2023, Vol. 1 of the Noctes medicae series)
- Syfilis albo choroba galijska (“Syphilis or The French Disease”) by Girolamo Fracastoro, translated, edited and supplemented with comments by Professor Tomasz Sapota (Vol. 2 in the Noctes medicae series)
Apart from the distinguished guests mentioned above, the following persons also took part in the symposium: Professor Agnieszka Cudnoch-Jędrzejewska, Vice-Rector for Clinical Affairs and Investments; Professor Agata Zalewska, Dean of the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” at the University of Warsaw; Professor Dagmara Mirowska-Guzel, President of the Warsaw Scientific Society; Professor Jerzy Jurkiewicz, President of the Warsaw Medical Society; and Professor Katarzyna Kłosińska, Chairperson of the Council for the Polish Language at the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Organized by: Medical University of Warsaw – Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry; University of Silesia – Faculty of Humanities; University of Warsaw –Faculty of “Artes Liberales”; Warsaw Scientific Society; and the Language in Medicine Panel of the Council for the Polish Language at the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
