Memories of Stefania Jabłońska

Professor Stefania Jabłońska, a remarkable doctor, dermatologist, and scientist, passed away on May 8th, 2017. Professor Jabłońska was best known for her pioneering research on the viral aetiology of cervical cancer. It is to a large extend thanks to her work, conducted in collaboration with the world’s best laboratories, that medicine today possesses a set of tools for the control of cervical cancer, also in Poland. A letter I received on 2 July 2017 from Professor Harald zur Hausen, in which he points out „the remarkable achievements in cervical cancer reduction in Poland”, is a testament to Professor Jabłońska’s great legacy.
In this issue of Journal of Health Inequalites we invite you to read two contributions paying homage to Professor Stefania Jabłońska’s work. The first, written by Professor Harald zur Hausen and Dr. Ethel-Michele de Villiers, Stefania Jabłońska – some personal recollections (p. 13), places Professor Jabłońska’s work in an interna­tional context. The second, Remembering Professor Jabłońska (p. 14), is written by Professor Sławomir Majewski, who collaborated with Professor Jabłońska over the course of several decades.
Despite the progress achieved in cervical cancer control, much is still left to be done to build upon Professor Stefania Jabłońska’s legacy. We explored the problem of the persistently high toll of cervical cancer morbidity and mortality in Eastern Europe in last year’s issue of the Journal of Health Inequalities [1, 2].

DISCLOSURE

Author reports no conflict of interest.

References

1. Wojtyła C, Słabuszewska-Jóźwiak A, Janik-Koncewicz K, Zatoński WA. New challenges for cervical cancer. J Health Inequal 2016; 2: 77-88. 2. Zatoński WA, Pisarska-Krawczyk M, Wojtyła C, Janik-Koncewicz K. Patterns of cervical cancer mortality in young adult women in three countries of the European Union: Finland, Poland and Latvia. J Health InequalI 2016; 2: 95-100.

Stefania Jabłońska

Stefania Szela Ginsburg-Jabłońska was born in Warsaw on September 7th 1920. In the years 1926-1937 she attended the Teachers’ Union Secondary School in Warsaw. In 1937 she began her medical studies in Warsaw, and in the years 1938-1939 she undertook further studies in Lviv, then in 1939-1942 in Frunze, where she was awarded a degree with honours. In 1946 she graduated as a specialist in dermatology and venereology from the Skin Pathology Faculty of the Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences in Leningrad. That same...


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