" " " "

History

From a small village to the whole world

 

The IPOKRaTES program was founded in 1980 and was initiated and developed by Georg Simbruner, M.D., Professor emeritus of Peditarics at the Medical University Innsbruck, Austria. In the past four decades, IPOKRaTES spread from a small village in Austria to factually all European countries, then to China, India, South East Asia as well as Arabien Countries, South America and Africa due to its high quality postgraduate education and excellent faculty.

FOUNDER: GEORG SIMBRUNER, M.D., Professor emeritus of Pediatrics

The history of IPOKRaTES seminars is truely a story of sawing seeds. Personal efforts and planning never result in greater achievements, rather in a limited personal success. In contrast sowing seeds being fundamentally different, is an personal act, which one believes has to be done for some inner reason or vocation. In retrospect it appears that starting IPOKRaTES had nothing to do with planning, but might have resembles sawing seeds into the wind. I trusted that I as an young university assistant without any assets would be able to win professors to lecture at the farmhouse in Dürnleis, to finance their travel and to convince colleagues to attend these seminars in that small village.

And it worked out. Each year the number of seminars and famous lecturers participating increased as the concept of viewing "teaching and learning as a spiritual form of life", having a few excellent, dedicated lectures for a limited really interested audience was very successful. IPOKRaTES seminars spread to various countries in Europe, to South America, then to China and India and countries all over the world.

About IPOKRaTES by Georg Simbruner, Leuven (Belgium), 2014

In 1980 postgraduate education is initiated by inviting a Professor from San Francisco, Vojtec Licko, to teach about a dozen medical doctors for a week in the courtyard of Georg Simbruner’s farmhouse in Dürnleis, Austria, no lecture room being available.

After three years of teaching Biomathematics, „Science Writing“ with Mimi Zeiger, San Francisco and „Biostatistics“ with Stanton Glantz, San Francisco are introduced and repeated for many years, making these seminars popular. The first clinically orientated seminar take place in 1987.

This education initiative becomes in 1991 a legally registered society under the name IPOKRaTES and has been integrated into and garnered financial support by the newly founded Academy of Lower Austria.

Since 1992 IPOKRaTES seminars expand to other countries, first to Slovenia, Hungary and Germany, and then to most European countries.

IPOKRaTES Student seminars are intiated by Reza Yassari and Georg Simbruner in 1994.  The first seminar „Signs, Symptoms and Interpretation“ takes place at the General Hospital in Krems, Austria. These seminars are led by Anglo-American lecturers and combine the methods of bed-side teaching  with problem-based learning.

The basis for the break-through of IPOKRaTES’s successful worldwide expansion started in 1996 with the long-term cooperation with m:con – mannheim:congress GmbH (LLC), represented by Michel Maugé.

IPOKRaTES seminars spread to the USA, South Africa, Uruguay, Mongolia, China, Kuwait, India, Indonesia and Malaysia, becoming a trade mark for excellent education.

In 2004 IPOKRaTES Nursing starts carrying the spirit of IPOKRaTES forth into other health care professions.

In 2011 IPOKRaTES is accredited as a non-profit foundation by the government of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the same year IPO-TV-teleducation is launched so the IPOKRaTES lectures can be followed by a worldwide audience.

A collaboration between UENPS (Union of European Neonatal and Perintal Societies) with its President Professor Corrado Moretti, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and IPOKRaTES in terms of webinars is established in 2020 to offer training programs in the field of neonatology and perinatology. This is followed by another cooperation with ANCG (Arab Neonatal Care Group) with its president Dr. Khaled El-Atawi, Dubai, UAE. ANCG started a series of continous medical education called „Neonatal Pearls“, webinars and workshops.

IPOKRaTES 30th Anniversary Celebration by Judy Aschner, Kos (Greece) 2010

© 2024 IPOKRATES Imprint Data Privacy