RSU Professor Andris Jumtiņš Has Been Awarded the Pauls Stradiņš Award for Outstanding Contribution to Orthopaedics

On Thursday, 15 October, the Head of the Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) Department of Orthopaedics Prof. Andris Jumtiņš was awarded the Pauls Stradiņš Award for outstanding contribution to the development of orthopaedics in Latvia. This award is the highest honour in surgery in Latvia.

The laudatio was given by Asst. Prof. Silvestris Zēbolds from the RSU Department of Orthopaedics, followed by an academic speech on the Art of Orthopaedics by Prof. Andris Jumtiņš.

The Pauls Stradiņš Award for outstanding performance in practical medicine or research in the history of medicine is awarded annually by RSU, the Latvian Academy of Sciences, and the Pauls Stradiņš Museum of the History of Medicine. 

Prof. Andris Jumtiņš is a traumatologist-orthopaedist at the state-owned Hospital of Traumatology and Orthopaedics and a traumatologist at the State Emergency Medical Service of Latvia. Prof. Jumtiņš is actively involved in providing and improving the study process and research at RSU. Since 2009, he has been the Head of the RSU Department of Orthopaedics at the Faculty of Medicine. He started his career as a doctor in 1983 through a paediatric surgery internship at the Children’s Clinical University Hospital.

He was among the first doctors in Latvia who had the opportunity to undergo training at Yale University under the guidance of Prof. Kristaps Keggi after Latvian independence was restored. Prof. Jumtiņš later used the knowledge and skills he had acquired both in the treatment of Latvian patients and to educate prospective physicians. He has performed surgeries on several hundreds of patients, including particularly complex procedures such as the successful hip replacement surgery on a 99-year-old patient who walked out of the hospital on her own to celebrate her 100th birthday. Prof. Jumtiņš is considered to be one of the implementers of AO osteosynthesis techniques in Latvia, and he was the first to focus on minimally invasive osteosynthesis techniques. Prof. Jumtiņš was one of the founders of the Latvian Association of Traumatology and Orthopaedics.

Prof. Andris Jumtiņš is the author of more than 200 scientific publications, he has successfully supervised the work of several doctoral students, performed model surgeries both in Latvia and abroad, as well as wrote the Traumatology and Orthopaedics textbook, which was the first textbook for medical students on this topic published in Latvian. In addition, modern teaching methods in traumatology and orthopaedics have been introduced under his guidance that are highly valued by both international students and experts. Prof. Jumtiņš has been educating students and medical residents for more than 30 years. 

About the Pauls Stradiņš Award
The Pauls Stradiņš Award for outstanding research activity in medical history or significant contribution to practical medicine was founded in 1983 by the Pauls Stradiņš Museum of the History of Medicine. The award is named after Professor Pauls Stradiņš, the outstanding surgeon, oncologist and founder of the hospital, museum and school of nursing. The Latvian Academy of Sciences has been participating in the awarding process since 1991, and RSU has been participating in nominating award candidates since 2014. The author of the award is sculptor Jānis Strupulis.