This medal has been awarded since 2007 at CSRCS conferences to doctors who have contributed to the development of cataract surgery in the Czech Republic.
The medal was minted at Mr. Kazda’s family business, TRIGA-K, in Prague 4, where the presidential plaques for virtually all state honors are also minted.
Professor Jan Vanýsek was born in Brno, where he also attended school. After graduating from medical school, he began working at a hospital in Brno. He initially worked in surgery, but then decided to switch to ophthalmology. „Ophthalmic surgery is wonderful. It’s like clockwork. You have to have all the qualities of a surgeon and great manual dexterity.“
From the beginning of his career, he was interested in new procedures in eye surgery techniques, research, and new examination methods. In 1945, he accepted an offer to become a professor at the Eye Clinic in Hradec Králové.
Here he performed his first keratoplasty and his first intraocular lens implantation. He collaborated with J. Altman and T. Klauber, who initially worked at the optical school in Jablonec and then offered to work for Vanýsek. It was they who calculated the optical power of the lens for implantation and also manufactured it.
They did an excellent job, because the first patient had 6/6 vision after the operation. The operation
went without complications. However, Vanýsek did not continue with these operations, partly because, according to the Czechoslovak legislation in force at the time, these operations were not to be performed. He did not find understanding for lens implantation even among his colleagues. The editor-in-chief of Czechoslovak Ophthalmology refused to publish Vanýsek’s work on lens implantation. In 1951, the Hradec Králové Faculty of Medicine became the Military Medical Academy, but Vanýsek did not want to be a soldier, so he returned to Brno in 1955. Here he continued his very successful clinical and academic career.
He was known worldwide primarily for his work on electroretinography and ultrasound examination of the eye. He was a member of a number of international medical societies. To a certain extent, he expressed support for the 2000 Words political manifesto, but according to his memoirs, he never actually signed the document. So, logically, from his point of view, he was not willing to publicly revoke it. And that is why the communist regime abruptly ended the professional career of one of our most successful ophthalmologists.
According to the autobiographical book „I Lived Through a Strange Century“ – memoirs of ophthalmologist Prof. Jan Vanýsek, MD, by author Jiří Vanýsek.
On June 20, 1961, he set a world record in long-distance flying, covering 1,364 km on the route from Karlovy Vary to Constanta.
