Dr Marcin Rawicz

The citation for Dr Marcin Rawicz was given by Dr George Meakin

It is a privilege and an honour for me to give the citation for my friend of many years Dr Marcin Rawicz

Marcin was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1948 to parents who were both journalists. He graduated from Warsaw Medical University in 1971 and completed his residency in 1976. In 1977, he won a 12 month scholarship in Leiden, and thereafter he became a regular locum tenens anaesthesiologist in the Netherlands, which he came to regard as his second homeland.

In 1988 he presented a thesis on Muscle Relaxants to Warsaw University for which he was awarded the degree of PhD. In 1991 he was awarded the Chair of Paediatric Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at Warsaw University and succeeded his mentor and life-long friend Professor Carl Rondio as the lead figure in Polish paediatric anaesthesiology. In fact it was Professor Rondio who introduced Marcin to the APA when the two collaborated on a joint meeting of the APA with the Polish Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care in Rabka, Poland in 1987.

During an exceptional career, Marcin has received numerous invitations to lecture on paediatric anaesthesia techniques, pharmacology, lung ventilation and intensive care. He has authored and co- authored several anaesthetic manuals and has over 70 peer reviewed publications. In addition, he was an associate editor of the Polish Journal of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care, he acted as reviewer for various other journals and is a Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Pediatric Anesthesiology.

But for some of us here today, Marcin will be best known for his work for the Federation of European Associations of Paediatric Anaesthetists (FEAPA) and its offspring, the European Society for Paediatric Anaesthesiology (ESPA). While undertaking his scholarship in Leiden, Marcin met Anneke Muersing, then an anaesthesia resident, who went on to found FEAPA in Rotterdam in 1989. As a result of his friendship with Anneke, and his ongoing links with the Netherlands, Marcin got more and more involved in the affairs of FEAPA, first joining the international speakers group, then becoming the Polish national representative on the Advisory Board from 1991-1997, the secretary of FEAPA from 1997-2005, President Elect from 2005-2009 and finally becoming the first President of ESPA at the conclusion of its inaugural congress in Warsaw in 2009 (which he himself organised magnificently).

Now, having recalled Marcin’s excellent managerial skills, I am tempted to recall a couple of occasions when these skills did in fact let him down. The first of these was at a FEAPA Executive Board Meeting in Cologne in 2005, when Marcin lost his return air ticket to Warsaw and had sit up all night on a train to get back home! The second one was during the ESPA inaugural congress in Warsaw when, following a splendid cabaret show he had organised for the delegates at the Teatr Sabat, he came to me in a most distressed state saying that there had been a “catastrophe!”. When I asked him what this huge problem was he said he had forgotten to send Madame Malgorzata Potocka, the show’s director and owner of the Teatr Sabat, a bouquet of flowers following the performance. Now, for me and probably most of you, that doesn’t sound like much of a catastrophe, but for Marcin it clearly represented a serious slip. I think this suggests that Marcin has a desire to excel which may have spurred him to achieve so much in his exceptional career. Only he would know that of course, but we know that he has supported the APA, and similar organisations outstandingly over the past 25 years, and it is for that sustained contribution to the advancement of our speciality that we honour him today.

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to present Dr Marcin Rawicz for Honorary Membership of the Association of Paediatric Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland.