Dr Aleksandar Sosberger - the first director of the Novi Sad City Hospital

Abstract

The first director of the Novi Sad City Hospital, which eventually grew into the modern Clinical Center of Vojvodina, was Dr. Aleksandar-Sandor Sosberger, born in Novi Sad on September 13, 1873. He graduated at the Faculty of Medicine in Budapest, and then trained in hospitals in numerous European cities. The desire to learn and further hone his training led him to specialize in the field of gynecology and obstetrics ? thus, he became the first gynecologist-obstetrician specialist in Vojvodina. At the beginning of the 20th century, with the sudden increase in the number of inhabitants of Novi Sad, the existing hospital facilities were insufficient for the hospitalization of the patients; thus, the City Magistrate made a decision in April of 1907 to build a new city hospital, the construction of which was completed in 1909, and the facilities built at that time are units in which some clinics of the Clinical Center of Vojvodina are still located today. It was organized in such a way that it had Internal Medicine, Surgical, Dermatology-Venereology, and Gynecology- Obstetrics departments, with the bed capacity of about 300. With his comprehensive education, experience, high expertise, intelligence, and organizational skills recognized, Dr. Aleksandar Sosberger was appointed as the first manager of the newly built City Hospital. He was the first in the City Hospital to apply the Wasserman reaction, and he obtained the first X-ray machine in Novi Sad, for his private practice. As the first gynecologist-obstetrician specialist in Vojvodina, he made a great contribution to the introduction and improvement of surgical techniques. Dr. Aleksandar Sosberger showed that with dedicated professional work and responsibility, great results, and improvements in the field of healthcare can be achieved, as evidenced by the fact that the City Hospital, over time, grew into a tertiary healthcare institution, the Clinical Center of Vojvodina.