Narrative C.V.
Martin Jan Stránský was born in 1956 in New York city. He is the son on Jan Stransky, co-founder of the Czechoslovak desk of Radio Free Europe. Martin's grandfater was Jaroslav Stránský, Czechoslovak Minister of Justice and then Education in the years 1946 to 1948, who also published Lidové noviny, Poítomnost, and seventeen other well-known periodicals of interwar Czechoslovakia. Martin's great-grandfather was Adolf Stránský, founder of Lidové noviny (the oldest daily in the country) and Czechoslovakia's first Minister of Commerce under Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.
After receiving his medical degree in 1983 and subsequent Board Certification in both Internal Medicine and Neurology, Dr. Stránský began practicing neurology and teaching at Yale University as Assistant Clinical Professor in Neurology, which he continues to do. Dr Stránský still spends about 15 weeks per year in the US teaching and practicing neurology, in addition to lecturing overseas in Grenada and in other countries two weeks per year.
As a result of events in Czechoslovakia of 1989, Dr. Stránský now spends the rest of his time in Prague. He is the founder and director of the Yale University-Charles University Neuroscience Exchange Program, as well as of the Prague Selective (http://www.pragueselective.com/), which has sent over 800 US medical students to Prague. He is the founder and Director of the Polyclinic at Národní (www.poliklinika.narodni.cz), a 25 physician multi-specialty clinic in Prague. Dr. Stránský serves as panel physician to both the US and British embassies in Prague, and also lectures at Charles University Medical School in Prague. He is also an-hoc advisor in medicine to numerous committees, ministers, and the office of the president.
In keeping with the family's publishing tradition, Dr. Stránský is founder of the M.J.Stránský Foundation Fund, which serves to promote journalism, provide journalism internships for budding journalists, and which also publishes the magazines Přítomnost, The New Presence, and their internet versions (www.pritomnost.cz, www.new-presence.cz). These quarterly magazines present a Central Europan point of view in the areas of politics, culture, ecomony and arts and literature. The magazines are distributed and read throughout the world. As a result of these acitivites, Dr Stránský was the sole recipient of the 1996 Award for Outstanding Cultural Achievement given by the Masaryk Academy of the Czech Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr Stránský is also the founder of the Prague Press Club (www.praguepressclub.cz), whose members meet regularly in Prague.
Also in keeping with the family's tradition, Dr Stránský is active in civic affairs. He served on the Program Committee of the annual Forum 2000 (www.forum2000.cz) meetings in Prague (which he also moderated) and was the Administrative Director for the citizen's movement "Impuls 99." In promoting relations with Czechs around the world, Dr. Stránský serves as a permanent consultative member on the Senate Commission for Overseas Czechs. Finally, Dr Stránský is founder and director of the Stránský Foundation Fund (Nadace Stránský - www.nfstransky.cz), whose mission is to promote legal reform and citizen's rights as pertains to dealing with the state and state institutions. The other mission of the Foundation is to provide internship and practical education for law students. Members of the Foundation's Board include former justices of the Supreme Court as well as prominent legal attorneys and educators.
Based on his experiences, Dr Stránský is a frequent speaker in the Czech Republic and Europe, speaking to numerous organizations, public and private. Topics include civil society, democracy in the Czech Republic, journalism, European-American relations, and medicine and health care systems. Dr. Stránský has published social, political and cultural commentaries in virtually every Czech paper. His commentaries are regularly featured in radio as well. He has also published the book Czech's Don't Want Democracy (Millenium press). Dr Stránský himself has also been the subject of print, radio, and TV interviews, as well as two television documentaries.