In memory of professor Stanisław B. Bartkowski (1933-2002)

Not until the moment I was asked to write this memorial sketch about Professor Stanisław Bartkowski did I realize that I belong to a handful of people who knew him so well, since I had the priviledge of knowing him for over half a century, i.e. from the very moment we first met as first-year students, through a few decades of working together at the Medical Academy in Kraków and later at Jagiellonian University Medical College (CMUJ), until the moment he passed away.
I was in the same year with Staszek studying Denti¬stry (1951-1955), and what brought us closer together was our passion for maxillofacial surgery instilled in us by Professor Henryk Dorski, who ran the Student Research Club for Oral Surgery students, of which we were both members. I clearly remember that Staszek wrote a paper about Alfred Meissner, the first maxillofacial surgeon in pre-war Poland, and I wrote about Teofil Kaczorowski, a pioneer of the theory of the focal infection in the oral cavity. After becoming dentistry graduates we both worked as assistants in the Chair and we began training in the newly opened (by Henryk Dorski on 1 December 1955) Maxillofacial Surgery Unit of PSK located at 17 Kopernika Street. Simultaneously, we continued our studies in the Faculty of Medicine, as in those times only graduates of this faculty were allowed to enter the specialization procedure. We had a chance to learn the issues related to oral cavity surgery from experienced senior assistants (G. Wyrzykowska, H. Wachtel, J. Gugulski, M. Strona) whereas general surgery, surgical techniques and filling medical reports were learned from specialists in general surgery who worked in Dorski’s ward (E. Hołdziewicz, H. Pawłowska, J. Deszczowa).
Although we constituted two different generations working together, we were like one big family: we enjoyed meeting together also after work, often celebrating birthdays or name days, meeting either in restaurants or at home. Sometimes we would meet at Staszek’s parents’ place where he would sing beautifully traditional songs from Lviv and his father would play the guitar. And sometimes we would dance, too. So that is how I got to know the family and private life of the future professor.
Staszek was born on 8 May 1933 in Lviv in a family of teachers. During the Second World War he was deported with his mother to Siberia. His mother did not survive those harrowing years when they experienced extreme hunger and grinding poverty. After the war he...


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