Yesterday the Academy of Medical and Health Sciences of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands delivered the Jordi Gol i Gurina award to Dr Daniel Podzamczer, head of the HIV-STI Unit of the Infectious Diseases Service of the University Hospital of Bellvitge, as a recognition of his professional and human career.
This event was part of the closing ceremony of the academic year, which was held mainly as an on-line event due to the pandemic.
Dr. Podzamczer was one of the pioneers in management of HIV/AIDS infection in our country. He completed his internal medicine residency at our hospital in 1985 and soon joined the Infectious Diseases Service to get started in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, then a new, rapidly spreading disease.
His interest to learn more about the new disease led him to incorporate the task of clinical research from the beginning. He founded the HIV Unit, where, in addition to assisting patients with HIV, has been growing as a structure with the help of research. This has allowed him to participate in numerous clinical trials and create his own lines of research. This task has resulted in more than 300 scientific papers and many collaborations with centers of international prestige.
He also coordinates the clinical trials program at the Spanish Network for AIDS Research (RIS) and is one of the two Spanish experts who have participated for years in the panel about the management of infections in patients with HIV at the NIH/CDC/IDSA of the United States.
He has always transmitted to his collaborators the great relevance of the personal situation of each patient, which can be very complex, and has continually fought against the stigma that has accompanied the disease from its hard beginnings.