Zdenek Fejfar, MDr., Dr.Sc.

1916 — 2003

Dr. Fefjar, first director of the WHO Cardiovascular Unit, was born in Bohemia and educated at Charles University in Prague, receiving his medical degree in 1945. He was an internist and senior researcher in physiology at the Institute for Cardiovascular Research until his appointment as chief medical officer for CVD at the World Health Organization in Geneva in 1959. He developed that unit into a central agency in the advancement of research in CVD prevention, defining medical and public health issues and gathering experts to address their solutions. The WHO Reports and technical manuals that he and his unit commissioned are milestones in CVD prevention methods and in policy, setting the direction of clinical and preventive cardiology internationally. Documentation, including Fejfar’s collection of photographs of WHO functions and material depicting the formation of the WHO CVD unit, is contained in the University of Minnesota CVD History Archive. (HB)