Several RSU Lecturers and Researchers Receive Annual Award in Medicine 2021

The Annual Award in Medicine ceremony took place for the 12th time this year. On Saturday, 12 March, a record number of 22 awards were presented. Arvīds Irmejs won Person of the Year in Medicine 2021. He is the Head of the Breast Unit at Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital (PSCUH), an oncologist and breast surgeon, an Associate Professor at the Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) Department of Surgery and a leading researcher at the Institute of Oncology.

The oncological surgery programme was resumed at the PSCUH Breast Unit in 2004. Irmejs restarted breast surgery at PSCUH and to a large extent throughout Latvia. The number of operations has increased from 40 to 600 per year and created the only complete team in our region with more than 30 people. In January 2021, Irmejs and a team of RSU researchers discovered a common but previously unrecognised mutation in the BRCA1 gene that contributes to the development of hereditary breast cancer.

The President's Speech

The event was organised by the Latvian Medical Association (LMA), and guests and TV viewers were addressed by the President of Latvia Egils Levits and Mrs. Andra Levite. President Levits: ‘The silent heroes who faithfully serve their calling to help people are the doctors nominated for the award tonight. However, I would also like to pay tribute to and express my admiration for your peers, the doctors in Ukraine. Risking their lives, they rescue the wounded in war zones, continue to work in bombed-out clinics and in basements where they care for the sick and help bring new lives into the world. A doctor or a nurse always embodies hope, even in the most hopeless circumstances. Let's be ready here in Latvia for the work the times demand and will demand of us in the future! Let's help Ukrainian refugees and the heroic Ukrainian doctors! Let me express heartfelt congratulations and gratitude for your work. I wish the Latvian medical community endurance and strength!’

Multiple Awards Categories

This year, the Annual Award in Medicine was presented in 15 traditional categories, and the Professor Ilmārs Lazovskis Award was presented for the first time in honour of the memory and 90th anniversary of the outstanding Latvian doctor. The company Grindeks’ highest professional award – the D. H. Grindel Award – was also presented at the event. Several special awards were also presented: the LMT Award for Innovation of the Year in Medicine and the Olainfarm Award for Child Psychiatrist of the Year, as well as special awards of the Ārsts.lv magazine published by the LMA.

The most significant of the awards in the Lifetime Contribution to Medicine category went to two outstanding personalities: Prof. Vija Zaiga Kluša, an Academician of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, a pharmacologist and oncologist, and Prof. Uldis Vikmanis, the first Dean of the renovated Faculty of Medicine of the University of Latvia (UL).

In the Lecturer of the Year category, medical students from the RSU and UL Faculty of Medicine voted for their teachers. RSU students have awarded the title of Lecturer of the Year to Assoc. Prof. Dzintra Kažoka. Students call her not only a "golden lecturer" but also a "golden person" as she encourages her students to believe that studying medicine is the best path for them.

The Latvian Association of Anaesthesiologists and Resuscitators’ role in improving the Latvian healthcare system and promoting public health, as well as their work with COVID-19 patients was recognised as being the Event of the Year in Medicine 2021.

The Hospital of the Year 2021 Award went to Vidzeme Hospital, which is one of RSU’s strategic cooperation partners.

The D. H. Grindel Award 

Grindeks has awarded an award named after David Hieronymus Grindel since 1995. Grindel was a chemist and pharmacist of Latvian origin, and the award goes to significant contributions in the field of pharmacy or medicine. The award is a sculpture created by artist Anda Munkevica, made of two symbolically different materials – metal and glass. This year the award was given to the President of the Latvian Psychiatric Association, psychiatrist and lecturer at the RSU Department of Psychiatry and Narcology Elmārs Tērauds. He is also the Head of the Outpatient Centre Pārdaugava and conducts research concerning patients with schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder. 

The Professor Ilmārs Lazovskis Award 

This year, the Professor Ilmārs Lazovskis Award went to Prof. Aivars Pētersons, who works at the RSU Department of Internal Diseases. Prof. Pētersons has run the PSCUH Nephrology Centre for almost 30 years and educated young doctors with great enthusiasm for more than a third of a century. Prof. Pētersons introduced peritoneal dialysis to Latvia. 

Special Award: Child Psychiatrist of the Year 

This year will be the first time that the Olainfarm special award for Child Psychiatrist of the Year will be presented. The aim of the award is to underscore the significance of child psychiatry, as well as to raise the issue of the acute shortage of child psychiatrists in Latvia. The award was created by artist Artis Sīmanis. The first award went to the Head of the Department of Child Psychiatry at the Children's Clinical University Hospital and Assistant at the RSU Department of Psychiatry and Narcology Ņikita Bezborodovs. 

Special Award: Innovation of the Year in Medicine

This year, LMT presented a special Innovation of the Year in Medicine Award. The award went to the team behind the stroke rehabilitation app Vigo Health and was received by the company's founder Jānis Šlēziņš. Vigo Health allows stroke patients to receive the help they need remotely, on their tablets, and helps doctors and medical staff deal with the problem of accessibility on a daily basis. Vigo Health is a cooperation partner of RSU.

The general public could vote for 10 categories of the Annual Award in Medicine on the LMA website. In total, more than 500 candidates were nominated for the awards, but the number of unique voters exceeded eight thousand.

The Annual Award in Medicine ceremony is organised by LMA in cooperation with the Latvian Junior Doctors Association and the Latvian Nurses Association, as well as RSU and UL. The awards were first presented in 2008. The award has grown in importance each year and is now the most important event of the year in the field of healthcare. Metal artist Armands Jēkabsons created the Annual Award in Medicine.