July 24, 2018 – Croatia’s World Cup performance was world class, as was the medical care they received along the way. Meet St. Catherine’s Specialty Hospital.
They ran, and they ran, with fitness levels the size of their hearts and determination. Tiny Croatia massively over-performed on the world stage, going all the way to the World Cup Final, a phenomenal achievement.
But far from being a fluke, Croatia had prepared itself immaculately. A great team of individuals, many of whom star for some of the biggest clubs in Europe, brought together by an inspirational new coach.
A successful team on the pitch requires much more than 11 players and a coach to function, and a long-standing partner of the Croatian Football Associatin is St. Catherine’s Specialty Hospital, the shining start of Croatia’s health tourism industry. And it is not any ordinary hospital, but a member of the Leading Hospitals of the World. Check out the Croatian national team at St. Catherine’s Specialty Hospital prior to their World Cup campaign, followed by an introduction of the hospital by St. Catherine’s themselves.
(Luka Modric and Vedran Corluka speaking about St. Catherine’s Specialty Hospital ahead of the 2018 World Cup)
Right from the start, the Hospital has brought together eminent experts who are constantly and systematically involved in continuing medical education as a guarantee of providing superior healthcare service to our patients. Furthermore, the physicians of the St. Catherine Hospital are affiliated with all four medical schools in Croatia while the hospital itself is a teaching hospital of major universities and medical schools, and it is licensed to carry out research in bio-medicine. It is not only the Ministry of Science and Education that has recently announced how the St. Catherine Hospital became “Scientific Center of Excellence for the Personalized Medicine in the Republic of Croatia”, but St. Catherine is as well a part of Consortium that includes the top healthcare and scientific institutions in the country. European Commission did the same and several years ago, it awarded our hospital, along with other consortium members, with the “Pain Omics” project totaling of 5.9 M Euros.
The defining characteristic of St. Catherine today is the ability to continually deliver great services in the medical field. For instance, St. Catherine Hospital was among few European institutions that started with applications of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in clinical practice, more precisely, to use MSC for cartilage repair. St. Catherine’s orthopedic team, for the first time in the region, made a new medical alternative: the meniscal transplant, an hour-long, outpatient, arthroscopic procedure that uses donor tissue to replace damaged meniscus, which can dramatically slow the onset of arthritis. In addition to meniscal transplant, as of recently, we are also successful in applying a new biological treatment: meniscus replacement with the synthetic implant. Furthermore, we are in the process of the integration of pharmacogenetics testing into the clinical work. At the best of our knowledge, we are the hospital with the lowest percentage of infections (0.6%), in comparison with any other hospital in the South Eastern Europe. Essentially, all those things make our growth of 30% year on year.
In the few short years since the hospital has been established, our achievements have been outstanding. Not only we are the official hospital of the Croatian Olympic Committee, but we are as well as the official hospital of the Croatian Football Federation. Our forward-thinking vision and ever evolving practices have ensured that we have treated more than 200 top athletes in the past few years. Namely, every professional athlete’s goal is to come back as soon as possible into full sport activities after an injury. We are extremely proud to say that we can offer that kind of healthcare as a center of excellence for sports medicine, regarding both the expert staff and the equipment we contain. Afterwards, because of our unique approach to the treatment, numerous of worldwide patients have been either treated or diagnosed in our hospital, out of which some include: Garry Kasparov (former World Chess Champion), Marin Čilić (Winner of the US Open 2014 ), Aleksandr Viktorovich Khoroshilov (the first Russian male to win a World Cup race (Schladming, 2015) since 1981) Gordan Giriček (NBA player: Memphis Grizzlies, Orlando Magic, Utal Jazz), Bojan Bogdanović (NBA player: Brooklyn Nets), Mario Mandžukić (football player: Juventus, Italy and Croatian National Soccer Team), Luka Modrić (football player: Real Madrid, Spain and Croatian National Soccer Team), Ivan Rakitić (football player: Barcelona, Spain and Croatian National Soccer Team), etc
To learn more about St. Catherine’s Specialty Hospital, visit the official website.
Why Croatian Health Tourism Could Also Reach the World Cup Final.
