About Me

I am honored to be able to have fulfilled the dream of my father and grandfather, both of whom devoted their lives in the fight for a free Czechoslovakia.  In doing so, one circle has closed and another opened.

I managed to renovate our family traditions as well as to regain a small piece of our stolen properties, and restore them to national cultural buildings.  I ensured the revival of the country’s oldest daily paper Lidové noviny, founded by my great-grandfather Adolf over 100 years ago, and I resurrected my grandfather’s magazine, Přítomnost. I also managed to ensure the continuation of the famous Topič Gallery, above which I established the Polyclinic at Národní with medical practices and professional offices.  The famous Národní Café was restored in the building next door.

Professionally, I continue to practice neurology and internal medicine.  As a member of the neurological faculty at Yale, I am able to live and work in Prague, where, in addition to my practice, I coordinate various academic and exchange programs between the Czech Republic and institutions on the other side of the pond.  My specialty is the evolution of the human brain, how it thinks, how it makes decisions, how it learns. I lecture about this topic on two continents, focusing on the negative effects that modern technology and social networks have the brain, especially in children, but also on society as a whole. My chief focus is banning cellphone use in schools and social media use in children. In Slovakia and cities throughout the Czech Republic, I have been instrumental in banning cellphone use in schools.

In politics, I function as an advisor to government and private officials; I have actively worked with Václav Havel and the country’s current president Petr Pavel.  As a councilman for the citizens of Prague 1, I set a record in becoming the only example of four successive generations serving a free Czech people in public office.  As part of my activities, I managed to erect the monument to our most famous dissident, Milada Horáková in Sněmovní Street; today’s communists have to walk past it to get to Parliament.

I am also an author, having just finished my great opus, The Rise and Fall of the Human Mind, for international release.  Locally, I authored an award-winning dark comedy, Diary of a Doctor from Mrnice (Tinyville), where I describe the events surrounding my Sunday medical practice (across the street from the pub) in a small village.  It is there that I also have a vineyard, which – besides a lot of hard work –  has completely deepened my connection to nature. I encourage everyone, at least once in their lives, to grow something that they themselves will eat or drink.

On a personal note, as a piano player, I’ve been in various bands (pick-up and serious), and still am, and recently have taken up the Scottish bagpipes, which I play at sunset at our village.  But my greatest pleasure is my family, my three children, Jan, Filip and Anna, and my grandchildren Maja and Max. I am proud that all of them are world citizens, and that they will continue our family tradition.