The sad news came to us of the passing of Jiří Widimský Sr. on November 11, 2020 at the age of 95 years. This could have been expected due to the gradual deterioration of his condition in the last few years.
Professor Jiří Widimský, M.D., D.Sc., FESC, FAHA was born on March 31, 1925 in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, where he was raised and completed his secondary education in 1944. He graduated from the First Medical School, Charles University in Prague with Promotion sub Auspiciis on September 8, 1950.
He started his medical career in a District Hospital of Carlsbad in 1951. He became a PhD fellow at the newly established Institute for Circulatory Diseases in Prague under the mentorship of the legendary director Professor Jan Brod. In 1957, he successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled ‘Juvenile Hypertension’, published locally in the Thomayer Collection (Avicenum, Prague, 1957) and in German in Arch Kreislaufforsch in 1958 [Citation1]. The key hemodynamic part of his thesis also appeared in English, an important achievement, as in the post-war years it was often difficult for researchers from Eastern European countries to have their papers accepted by Western journals [Citation2]. In this research, Widimský and his collaborators described a group of 98 young hypertensive patients who were in a hyperkinetic state, characterised by tachycardia and increased pulse pressure. Amazingly, these seminal observations were later confirmed by the extensive invasive hemodynamic studies of Per Lund-Johansen in Bergen [Citation3] and Stevo Julius in Ann Arbour [Citation4].
Widimský continued his research at the Institute for Circulatory Diseases, later becoming the Department of Cardiology within the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Prague, where he spent most of his professional career. In the early 1960s, he focussed on the pulmonary circulation. A highlight of this early experience was his 13 month fellowship (1961–1962) sponsored by the Swedish Society for Cardiology and Lung Diseases, working in the Department of Internal Medicine, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg, Sweden under the mentorship of Professor Lars Werkö. During that period, he published extensively and returned several times to the Department of Clinical Physiology, at Sahlgrenska; each time for a period of 3–4 months (1967, 1968, and 1969).
Widimský became an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at Charles University in Prague in 1968 with the habilitation thesis: ‘Acute pulmonary hypertension – cardiopulmonary function during unilateral pulmonary artery occlusion’ [Citation5]. He became a Doctor of Sciences (D.Sc.) in 1969 with the monograph ‘Pulmonary hypertension’, published in Germany: ‘Pulmonale Hypertonie’, G. Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart – New York [Citation6]. Widimský became a full Professor of Internal Medicine at Charles University in Prague in 1978.
In the years 1970–1983, he was Head of the Department of Cardiology at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, and, in 1983–1993, Head of the Department of Cardiology at the Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education. He was famous for being extremely well informed about all recent development in cardiology, including results of large clinical trials.
Widimský authored 47 monographs, some of them published abroad, as well as numerous chapters in both national and international monographs. In total, he was author or co-author of about one thousand professional publications in Czech and foreign languages. His last publications as first author are dated 2015, the year when he celebrated his 90th birthday and the Czech Society of Hypertension fulfilled his wish and presented him with a colour laser printer much needed for his never-ending writing activity.
Professor Widimský Sr. was extremely active in international professional societies: the President of the European Society for the Pathophysiology of Respiration (1974–1976); a council member of the European Society of Cardiology (1976–1984), the Vice-President of the European Society of Cardiology (1980–1984); and, since 1982, a corresponding member of the British Cardiovascular Society. He became an International Fellow of the American Heart Association in 1985, a Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology in 1988 and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1995. He was a member of the European Board for Speciality in Cardiology of the European Union (EBSC) since 1998. He became a member of the International Society for Hypertension (ISH) in 1981 and joined the European Society for Hypertension (ESH) when it was established a few years later. He held honorary memberships in the Czech Medical Society, the Czech Society of Cardiology, the Czech Internal Medicine Society, the Czech Angiology Society and in the Czech Society for Atherosclerosis. He was Honorary President of the Czech Society of Hypertension. In 2007 he became an honorary member of the ESH.
The Prague Organising Committee of the 2002 joint ISH/ESH Meeting established the Prof. Jiří Widimský Sr. Award to be presented to three distinguished young European investigators (not older than 40 years) who had carried out promising research in clinical or experimental hypertension and presented it at European Hypertension Meetings. The award was presented annually by the Czech Foundation for Hypertension Research until 2012.
Professor Widimský Sr. was a recipient of numerous honours and awards: in 2005, a medal of the Czech Minister of Health for his outstanding services to the Czech Healthcare System; in 2007, the Hlávka Life-long Achievement Award and in 2012, Honorary Diploma provided by the Foundation of Dagmar and Václav Havel for his life-long medical scientific activity. Professor Widimský also served as a consultant to the World Health Organisation. He was from 1974 to 1992 Editor-in-Chief of Cor et Vasa, the only international journal in cardiology published in English in Eastern European countries at the time.
In this photo taken in the year 2000, he is no. 5 from the right, surrounded by other council members of the Czech Society of Hypertension, including his son Jiří Jr. (no. 2 from the left) and obituary author R.C. (no. 7 from the left).
The breadth and impact of scientific activity of Professor Widimský in the cardiovascular field was greatest in hypertension research. In addition to being among the first to characterise the hemodynamics of hypertension in young persons [Citation1,Citation2], he was also involved in many large national and international clinical trials of antihypertensive treatment. For example, he served as a member of the steering committee and as a national coordinator for the Valsartan Antihypertensive Long-term Use Evaluation (VALUE) trial [Citation7], the only mega trial that has ever compared head to head a blocker of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system with a calcium antagonist for the treatment of hypertension. VALUE showed the non-inferiority of valsartan vs. amlodipine for the prevention of cardiac events and stroke, a finding of crucial importance for guidelines in the treatment of hypertension.
Professor Widimský’s two sons, Peter and Jiří Jr., are both internationally recognised in the fields of cardiology and hypertension, and two of his seven grandchildren have become physicians.
Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Charité University Medicine, Berlin, Germany
Renata Cífková
Center for Cardiovascular Prevention, Charles University Medical School I and Thomayer Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic
Sverre E. Kjeldsen
Departments of Cardiology and Nephrology, University of Oslo, Ullevaal Hospital, Oslo, Norway
[email protected]
Krzysztof Narkiewicz
Department of Hypertension and Diabetology, Medical University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland
Michel Burnier
Service of Nephrology and Hypertension, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland
Suzanne Oparil
Vascular Biology and Hypertension Program, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
Giuseppe Mancia
University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
Disclosure statement
RK is President of ESH; RC is a previous secretary of ESH and a staff member with Prof. Widimský; SEK, KN, MB and SO are Editors of Blood Pressure and GM is Editor of Journal of Hypertension. None reports conflicts of interest related to this obituary. It is published in both Blood Pressure and Journal of Hypertension.
References
- Widimsky J, Fejfarova HM, Fejfar Z, et al. Der jugendliche Hochdruck [Juvenile hypertension]. Arch Kreislaufforsch. 1958;28(2):100–124.
- Widimský J, Fejfar MH, Fejfar Z. Changes of cardiac output in hypertensive disease. Cardiologia (Basel). 1957;31(5):381–389.
- Lund-Johansen P. Hemodynamics in early essential hypertension. Acta Medica Scand. 1967;181(Suppl.482):2–101.
- Julius S, Pascual AV, London R. Role of parasympathetic inhibition in the hyperkinetic type of borderline hypertension. Circulation. 1971;44(3):413–418.
- Widimsky J, Kasalicky J, Prerovsky I, et al. Central hemodynamics in recurrent embolism. Am Heart J. 1966;71(2):206–215.
- Widimský J. Pulmonale Hypertonie. Bücherei des Pneumologen Bd. 6. Stuttgart: Thieme Verlag; 1981.
- Julius S, Kjeldsen SE, Weber M, et al. Outcomes in hypertensive patients at high cardiovascular risk treated with regimens based on valsartan or amlodipine: the VALUE randomised trial. Lancet. 2004;363(9426):2022–2031.