Vale Jiří Rondiak : 1934 – 2013

Abstract

Jiří Rondiak, an eminent Czech physician and specialist in blood transfusion died in September 2013 after a long illness. Rondiak was born in 1934 in Hořice v Podkrkonoší, a small East Bohemian town where is father was a renowned and loved general medical practitioner who died when Jiří was young, thus increasing his interest in the study of medicine. Over 1952 – 1959 he studied at the Medical Faculty of Charles´ University in Prague and over 1959 – 1960 he worked at the Dept. of internal medicine in Hořice, and initially intended to specialize in obstetrics until he was impeded by a physical injury. Obsterics' loss was transfusion's gain and in 1960 he started working at the Blood Bank of the Faculty Hospital in Hradec Králové, where he passed board examinations in blood banking and also underwent the Tropical medicine course of Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. By 1977 he had been appointed head of the Blood Bank of the Faculty Hospital in Hradec Králové and was the Chief Blood transfusion specialist for the East Bohemian region, holding these posts until 2002 and to the 1990's respectively, responsible for the performance of the blood banks in the whole region. His achievements in his home environment included the building and continuous improvement of the transfusion service, including the challenges of infectious agents in the 1980s-90s and the establishment of one of the first plasmapheresis centres in the country as the Czech Republic emerged from the Russian-domination era and moved towards self-sufficiency in blood products. His interests also included the HLA system and the stem cell area, in which he collaborated and published internationally.