Henryk Skarżyński

Henryk Skarżyński, born in 1954, is a Polish otolaryngologist, audiologist and phoniatrist who created and directs the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing in Warsaw and the World Hearing Center in Kajetany. He took his medical degree at the Medical Academy of Warsaw in 1979, earned a doctorate in 1983 and a habilitation in 1989, and became a full professor in 1995. In 1992 he performed the first cochlear implant operation in Poland and Central Europe, and he later developed partial deafness cochlear implantation, a method meant to restore hearing for adults and, from 2004, children who still have some natural hearing, while preserving what remains. His programmes also introduced brain stem implants, early detection of hearing loss in newborns and infants, and internet-based hearing, speech and vision screening, and he worked on telemedicine tools such as remote fitting of implants.