Professor Stanisław Mlekodaj (1927-2021)

Stanisław Mlekodaj, son of Stanisław and Maria (née Leśniak), was born on 2nd March 1927 in Rabka. In 1941, he finished primary school in his hometown. During the German occupation he was an apprentice and then a technical worker at the Post Office in Rabka supervised by the Germans [1]. Due to the access to German communication devices, including the equipment of the land forces, in 1943 he was sworn in as a member of the Operational Group of Cieszyn Silesia of the Home Army [2]. After World War II, in 1948, he obtained the matriculation certificate at the Secondary School in Rabka, and began studies at the Faculty of Medicine of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. During his studies, he was a member of the Zakopane branch of the AZS Ski Section, and a member of the national ski team [3]. He obtained his doctor’s diploma (no. L.292/88/53) in July 1953 and in September he started working as an assistant in the surgical ward of the City Hospital in Rabka, and at the same time managed the Municipal Emergency Station. From March 1955, he worked first as an assistant and then an assistant professor at the Surgical Department of the Thoracic Surgical Sanatorium in Zakopane, headed by one of the outstanding Polish pioneers of thoracic surgery, Professor Wit Rzepecki. In the years 1958–1961 he was the head of this institution [4]. In 1958, Stanisław Mlekodaj obtained the title of a specialist in thoracic surgery [5], and the following year he went on a scientific internship with outstanding European pioneers of thoracic surgery at surgical clinics in Utrecht (Prof. Joan Frans Nuboer), in Munich (Prof. Rudolf Zenker) and in Düsseldorf (Prof. Ernst Derra).
In addition to his clinical activity, Stanisław Mlekodaj worked in the research field obtaining a doctoral degree in 1961, awarded by the Council of the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków on the basis of an examination and thesis entitled Bronchial fistula after lung tissue resection, and then in November 1968 a postdoctoral degree in medical sciences in the field of thoracic surgery. This degree was awarded by the Council of the Medical Faculty of the Medical Academy in Gdańsk by the resolution of 28th November 1968, on the basis of scientific achievements and dissertation entitled Surgical treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. In May 1978 he was appointed by the Minister of Health and Social Welfare to the position of associate professor, and in 1988 he was awarded the title of...


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