Endre Sebestyen Kovacs

* Ipolypásztó, January 5, 1861 – † Budapest, October 5, 1915 / surgeon, hospital director ; ; His father, József Kovács Sebestyén, was the pastor of Ipolypásztó, who was sentenced to death and then to prison for his participation in the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848/49. The memory of his uncle, the famous Pest physician, Endre Kovács Sebestyén Sr. (Garamvezekény), also played a decisive role in his son's career choice. He completed his secondary school studies at the Reformed College in Pápa and completed them in 1878. He then obtained his medical degree from the University of Budapest in 1884. His first job was at the Rókus Hospital in the capital, where he became acquainted with his future field of expertise as an assistant to Sándor Lumniczer (1821–1892), professor of surgery. Thanks to the foundation established in memory of his uncle, he was able to make a one-year study trip to Europe and thus visited the clinic of the famous gastric surgeon, Theodor Billroth (1829–1894), in Vienna. In 1885, during the Serbo-Croatian War, he served as a surgeon at the Belgrade hospital of the Hungarian Red Cross. He had all the prerequisites to “make a career” in Pest, but his heart pulled him back to his homeland and in 1889 he settled in Ipolyság, where he was elected chief physician of Hont County. In 1896, he advertised a collection in the Honti Lapok for a city hospital to be built in Ipolyság and this initiative of his met with unexpected success: on October 10, 1900, thanks to the donations received, the Ipolyság hospital was inaugurated in a grand ceremony. The first chief physician was, of course, Endre Sebestyén Kovács. During its 15 years of operation, the hospital became nationally renowned. The director not only earned the recognition of his colleagues with his innovative surgical interventions (e.g., he successfully operated on a boy with typhoid fever and intestinal perforation!), but also by striving to equip the small town's hospital with the most modern equipment. His design for a mobile hospital that could be used to combat epidemics also aroused national interest. In addition to various professional societies and associations, he was also an active member of numerous social organizations. He even excelled in sports: he was one of the founders of the Hont County branch of the Hungarian Athletic Club, was a good swordsman and a famous horseman. His premature death was caused by blood poisoning: while operating on a soldier wounded in World War II, he cut himself with a scalpel, the wound became inflamed and infected. Hundreds of people waited for the train carrying his body at the Ipolyság railway station. In 1917, a bronze bust of him by sculptor Gyula Bezerédy was erected in the courtyard of the hospital he founded. A marble tomb preserves his memory in the Ipolyság cemetery.