Honored Persons

 

Johannes Poigenfürst

Johannes Poigenfürst (born March 19, 1929 in Vienna) is an Austrian accident surgeon. In 1993 he initiated the construction of the accident hospital Casa Austria in Timisoara (Temeschvar) in Romania. In 1995 Johannes Poigenfürst was named honorary citizen of Timisvoara. For his great involvement in Romania, Poigenfürst was awarded the "Viktor Frankl Prize of the City of Vienna" in 2005, and in 2008 the "Elisabeth Medal" in gold, the highest honor of Caritas Austria. Johannes Poigenfürst studied medicine at the University of Vienna, where he became Dr. med. doctorate in 1955. After completing medical studies, he began his specialist training in traumatology, which lasted from 1955 to 1962, in West Berlin, England and Sweden. From 1967 to 1968, he completed his professional training in New York. In 1972 Poigenfürst habilitated and in 1983 he was appointed professor. From 1984 until his retirement in 1997, he was Medical Director of the Lorenz Böhler Hospital in Vienna. In 1994, Poigenfürst sparked a public, intensively mediated debate on the Working Hours Act for physicians. The whole thing was known as the "Affair Poigenfürst". He had disobeyed his employer, the AUVA, regarding working time with regard to patients, after which his dismissal or retirement had been pronounced. Social Affairs Minister Josef Hesoun instructed the AUVA to withdraw these sanctions.