In this episode:

• Choosing between medicine and molecular biology
• The value of a single Stroke Society under single leadership
• Becoming a neurologist by chance
• Neurology is an action-packed adventure
• Better too fast than too slow
• Central organization and following rules
• Nature photography as a life-saving hobby

Meet the doctor who is leading stroke care in the Czech Republic, Stroke Society chair Dr Aleš Tomek, chief of the cerebrovascular program at the 2nd Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague, and deputy director of its Neurology Department.

The. numbers speak for themselves.

Out of the 47 accredited stroke centres in the country, 35 are ESO certified centres (second only to Germany), and 45 received ESO Angels Awards in 2024. Twenty-five were diamond hospitals. 

Five out of the country’s 14 self-governing regions have already reached Angels Region status, which means that over four million Czech citizens, that is almost 40 percent of the population, are officially living in safe communities for stroke.

It's a remarkable achievement for a country whose predecessor state was under Soviet rule until 1989, although Soviet healthcare, despite being ill-equipped and under-resourced, was usually well-organized and prioritized equality, he said during a conversation recorded in Helsinki in May.

In the last 15 years, stroke care in  the Czech Republic has benefitted from central organization, mandatory quality indicator reporting, and coordination with the Ministry of Health, as well as the Czech affinity for rules. He says, “We like to follow strict rules, you know, and we impose them on ourselves frequently.”

Find out more about the Angels Initiative

www.angels-initiative.com

In this episode:

• The role of a neurologist
• The gap between science and citizens
• A complex disease needs complex teams
• Growing up in Porto
• Becoming a neurologist and public health advocate
• The importance of sharing solutions
• Treating stroke in the middle of the Atlantic

Meet Vitor Cruz, senior neurologist and Head of Department at Hospital Pedro Hispano, ULS Matosinhos, and President of the Portuguese Stroke Society. 

An innovator, compassionate leader and unifying force, he is reshaping stroke care in Portugal with his ability to bring together diverse healthcare teams under a shared vision of excellence.

Vitor is a problem-solver for whom being a neurologist means a duty to look after the brains of citizens – and he means all citizens, from Lisbon to a group of tiny dots in the Atlantic Ocean. In a conversation recorded in Helsinki, where he received the 2025 Spirit of Excellence Award, he talks about growing up in Porto with parents who instilled a sense of social responsibility and becoming a public health advocate as well as the best doctor he can be. 

He says, “You have a a job as a single practicing doctor, but you have a responsibility as a group to move things forward.”

He explains the need for bridging the gap between what is known and what is done (a task that starts with assembling a team “of people not like you”), how to treat acute stroke in the middle of the Atlantic, and about why patients are at the heart of all decision-making.

Find out more about the Angels Initiative

www.angels-initiative.com

In this episode:

• A duty towards country
• The stars that guide her
• “You have lost your ability to dream”
• A Soviet education
• The importance of empathy
• Progress in stroke care in Armenia
• Of dreams and travel

Nune Yeghiazaryan is head of neurology at Erebouni Medical Center in Yerevan, president of the Armenia Stroke Council, and a member of the European Academy of Neurology, the ESO and the WSO.

For over a decade, she has been answering the question, if not now, then when, if not you then who, and following that command has done more than define her professional life. 

The first time she attended the European Stroke Organization Conference (ESOC), in Barcelona in 2016, she was a shy, young doctor from Armenia who could scarcely believe that she was suddenly part of it all. 

Nine years on, we’re at ESOC 2025, where that same doctor is a nominee for the Spirit of Excellence Award, and stroke care in Armenia, though with some way to go, is already unrecognizable from 10 years ago. 

Her extraordinary story begins in a Soviet School where she is top of the class and destined to become a doctor ... 

 “My parents and grandparents are very, very proud of me because I am the best in the school,” she recalls. “And in Soviet Armenia, it was accepted that the good pupils became either doctors or lawyers. But I’m a girl. And according to my grandfather, becoming a lawyer is not an appropriate profession for a girl . . .”  

Find out more about the Angels Initiative

www.angels-initiative.com

In this episode:

• Medicine is emotional
• The schoolboy revelation that medicine is his home
• The second revelation: becoming dedicated to stroke
• Research to benefit recovery
• Working with Angels 
• The mission to share knowledge

Meet neurologist Dr Francisco Moniche, “Pachi” to his friends, of whom there are many in the global stroke community. 

A neurologist for close to two decades, he knew right from the start of his residency that stroke was what he calls “the best part”. With degenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s, a doctor could try preserve and improve a patient’s quality of life. But by treating a stroke you could give someone back their life – and that is something this doctor cannot get enough of.

Pachi is a stroke neurologist and researcher at Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville, the biggest hospital in southern Spain, famous among other things for the quality of its research. It is the country’s number one provider of mechnical thrombectomy, and a catalyst for stroke care excellence in the region - where it has helped many other hospitals improve their pathway.

Pachi is a great friend of Angels, freqently getting involved in training, often in developing countries far from home.  

“Medicine is something absolutely emotional,” he says in a conversation about transmitting passion to medicine. “It’s much more than just putting a drug to a patient. Sometimes you go home and you are absolutely sad.”

Find out more about the Angels Initiative

www.angels-initiative.com

In this episode:

• Stroke care in Ukraine from the early 2000s

• Becoming a neurologist
• Stroke education outside Ukraine
• Making a decision to change the system
• Coorperation with the Ministry of Health
• Training the next generation of neurologists
• Something missing in the centre of Europe
• A family of stroke care reformers

Ukrainian neurologist, Dmytro Lebedynets is head of the Stroke Center at Feofania Hospital in Kyiv, associate professor at Kharkiv National University, and founder of the Ukrainian Stroke Medicine Society.

He steers a group of experts in neurology and neurosurgery in the Ukrainian Ministry of Health who in the past five years have made Ukraine an outstanding example of how to build and improve stroke care. 

While enrolled in the European Master Program in Stroke Medicine in Krems, Austria, Dmytro became aware that Ukrainian stroke care lagged far behind that in most of Europe. It made no sense. 

“Ukraine is in the center of Europe. Why should we be nowhere? So that’s why I decided okay, we need to do something.” 

In a conversation recorded during ESOC in Helsinki, Dmytro describes how, over the next five years, Ukraine would become an outstanding example of how to build and improve stroke care, and what it takes to keep improving while your country is at war. 

He also talks about the decision to follow his father into neurology, at first reluctantly, and then in turn inspiring his younger brother, Paolo, to become the third stroke care reformer in the Lebedynets family. 

Find out more about the Angels Initiative

⁠www.angels-initiative.com⁠