15.12.2017.
Military Medical Academy marks 85 years of military neuropsychiatry
Military Medical Academy has marked today 85 years of military neuropsychiatric service. The meeting was attended by Jadranka Joksimović, Minister of European Integration in the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Bojan Jocić, State Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Meho Mahmutović, State Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Nenad Nerić, State Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs, Major-General Prof. Mladen Vuruna, Rector of the University of Defence, Colonel MD Uglješa Jovičić, Acting Head of the Military Health Department, academics, professors, employees and retired members of the neuropsychiatric service, cadets of the MMA Medical Faculty.
On behalf of the Ministry of Health and Minister of Health, Meho Mahmutović, State Secretary in that ministry, congratulated the celebrators on their jubilee.
- It is a big deal when civilian and military health service go in the same line, and that should always be a rule. Doctors are the foundations of every society. There is nothing without a doctor. Doctors make the people healthy. If you have a healthy population and healthy people, then you can realise everything else. “It is not written in vain at your entrance that a sick person has one desire, and a healthy one has thousand of them”, State Secretary Mahmutović said and wished military neuropsychiatry specialists to spread their knowledge further.
- At every medical gathering, it is a pleasure to say that nothing starts with us and nothing ends with us either. It is always important when you mention your teachers, when you mention people who made and built something before us. These people have left and laid the foundations for us today to be able to continue this work in a good and quality way and to leave something good and quality for future generations. Neuropsychiatry is a serious, first and foremost, fundamental branch, a joint story where we all make a person to be healthy first of all – the Secretary of State pointed out.
The significance of the military neuropsychiatric service was also recalled by Acting Chief of MMA Colonel Prof. Miroslav Vukosavljević. He said:
- Illnesses and disorders that you encounter in your everyday work, the treatment of psychosis, posttraumatic stress disorders, cerebrovascular diseases, are predominant even today in disturbing the quality of life of the social community as a whole. Your results in several decades of work with all specific difficulties speak in favor of the fact that tradition from the time of the first military neuropsychiatrist, Dr. Jordan Tasić, is respected in our home even today.
Colonel Prof. Miroslav Vukosavljević pointed out that neurology and psychiatry require constant and intensive professional training, but also a huge knowledge of general medicine, in order to understand the complexity of the treatment of individual, and in every sense specific patients. He congratulated the celebrators on their jubilee and said that the results of their work were visible in a large number of cases of successfully treated patients.
The participants were greeted by the Head of the Neuropsychiatric Clinic of the MMA Group, Colonel Prof. Ranko Raičević. He pointed out that this is a great jubilee and a great day for military medical care and for the medical community of Serbia, but that this anniversary would not be possible without many generations of people from all profiles - from teachers to medical technicians and nurses.
He reminded of the magnificent Dr. Jordan Tasić, one of 1,300 corporals, the founder of military neuropsychiatry:
-This is also the jubilee of the neurological and psychiatric community in Serbia because we are an inseparable part of the medical community of our country. And we are students of numerous top teachers of Belgrade and other universities in Serbia and the former SFRY.
He briefly pointed to the role of neurology that needs to be understood on the basis of the fact that vascular brain diseases, epilepsy, neurodegenerative diseases, parkinsonism, dementia, and multicellular sclerosis represent agregately the third cause of both diseases and deaths in the modern world, and according to the costs of treatments in 27 of 29 countries of the European Union they unfortunately take the first place. These data, he said, are much more dramatic in our environment.
He said that in the present generation, both services will endeavor to maintain a recognizable place in the medical profession and science, resolved to leave space and potential for future generations to be even better and more successful.
-This is a symposium dedicated to military neurology and military psychiatry, but with a clear message that we were, we are and will always be part of the medical community of our country in the special task of taking care for all people who need help - Colonel Prof. Raičević said.
In an introductory lecture on the expert meeting, which opened the second part of the celebration of the anniversary, Head of the Neuropsychiatric Clinics Group of the MMA said that in the period from 1984 to the present, there were more than 7,000 patients treated in both clinics, more than 60,000 examined in departments, more than 140,000 patients examined and more than 100,000 diagnostic procedures carried out in the Emergency Centre.
In his presentation, he reminded of the difficulty of the work of those who are the least mentioned - and these are medical technicians and nurses.
