On 25.04.2023 in the Polonia Palace Hotel in Warsaw, the 20th Jubilee Gala was held to present the statuettes of the 20th Edition of the Złoty OTIS 2023 Confidence Awards organized by the Złoty OTIS Confidence Award Institute.
Złoty OTIS is a prestigious Trust Award that has been granted since 2004 on the initiative of a group of distinguished experts, members of the Złoty OTIS Trust Award Chapter, who shape the health care system in Poland. This prestigious award is given to outstanding doctors, pharmacists, journalists and patient organizations and pharmaceutical companies. It is an "award with a mission" that recognizes and supports those areas of the Health Service that have been overlooked by decision-makers.
In this year's edition, the winners of the Złoty OTIS Trust Awards were three representatives of the Silesian Medical University in Katowice:
H.M. Rector Prof. Tomasz Szczepanski, M.D., was awarded in the Category: Development of Medical Universities - for outstanding achievements in the scientific, didactic and infrastructural development of the Silesian Medical University.
Pro-rector for Science Prof. Dr. Habil. n. med. Katarzyna Mizia-Stec was awarded the Prize in Category: Special Awards on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Złoty OTIS Trust Award - for her creative work in the Chapter of the Złoty OTIS Trust Award (2003 - 2023). Ms. Prorektor also received the award on behalf of Prof. Szczepanski.
Dr. Grzegorz K. Jakubiak, M.D., a research and teaching assistant at the Department of Internal Medicine, Angiology and Physical Medicine of the Faculty of Medical Sciences in Zabrze, was the winner in the Category: Scientific Debuts in Medicine.
The Golden OTIS Trust Award is given to individuals and organizations that not only have outstanding achievements in improving the functioning of the health care system, but also which patients can place the highest trust in. The Awards are decided by the Award Chapter, which today consists of 64 participants, ensuring the presence of specialists from every field of medicine, as well as from pharmacy and laboratory diagnostics. The Chapter welcomes new participants to its ranks once a year, and always selects one of the winners of the "Scientific Debuts" category, which ensures continuity of generational representation and people whose expertise is needed to ensure the highest substantive standards of evaluation of the submitted individuals and organizations.
The symbol of the Award is a statuette in the shape of an owl, a bird symbolizing wisdom. The name of the OTIS Award itself is a play on words, referring to the word "otus" - a species of Canadian owl - and OTC - over-the-counter medicines, with which the first educational actions of the Trust Award were associated, such as encouraging people to read package inserts. Today, "Golden OTIS" is a name of its own, just like the "Oscar" Film Awards, or the famous Oscars.
