Abstract
In the Patriotic Hall of Carolinum in Prague, the presentation of commemorative medals of the Czech Medical Society of J. E.
Purkyně to personalities who have made a significant contribution to Czech medicine, was held. Among the awards, the Pilsner neurosurgeon Prof.
MUDr. Zdeněk Mraček also received a gold commemorative medal for lifetime achievement.
Prof. Mraček was born in Pilsen on January 6, 1930.
He spent eight childhood years with his parents in Podkarpatská Rus, where his father served as an officer in the Czechoslovak army. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen in 1957 and began working in the neurosurgical department of the Surgical Clinic in Pilsen.
In 1964 he joined the Neurosurgical clinic of Professor Zdeněk Kunc at the Central Military Hospital in Prague. In September 1966, Mraček returned back to Pilsen for the vacant post of neurosurgeon.
He was the first to introduce an extradural subtemporal approach to the processes destructing the apex pyramid. He promoted decompressive laminectomy in lumbar stenosis.
In a monograph devoted to frontobasal injuries, he described the clinical trias: cranial scum injury, blindness, and intracranial carotid injury in frontobasal injuries. His negative-to-provocative attitude toward the Communist regime hampered the acquisition of academic ranks, and it has long prevented the transformation of the neurosurgical ordinariat within the surgical clinic into a separate neurosurgical department.
This change did not take place until January 1983. He served as Mayor of the City of Pilsen from 1990 to 1994.
In r. 2008 he was granted Honorary Citizenship of the City of Pilsen and in r. 2010 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Pilsen Region.