World-class doctor, Head of the Intensive Care Unit of “Evangelismos” hospital and head of all the Intensive Care Units of Greece, Anastasia Kotanidou is at the frontline of the pandemic talking about a constant fight between life and death in an ICU – a fight which she always faces with optimism. She recollects her happy years in Bulgaria, where she grew up and studied, while explaining the difficulties to be devoted to both medicine and family.
By Mia Kollia
Anastasia Kotanidou was born and grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria.
She lived there until the age of 24 when she graduated from the Medical School of Sofia University and at the early 1980s, she moved to Greece with her family.
She had already been married and had a daughter, Gabriella.
Later she got specialty in Pneumonology, in the Pathological Clinic of the General Hospital of Infectious Diseases of Athens and since then she has been working incessantly in “Evangelismos” hospital.
Today she is the head of the Intensive Care Unit of Evangelismos and coordinator of all the ICUs of the country.
She received specialty in Intensive Care in 1994 and she was voted consecutively as Lecturer (1996), Assistant Professor (2002), Permanent Assistant Professor (2007) and Associate Professor (2009) in Pneumonology – Intensive Care, in the Intensive Care Clinic of the University of Athens.
She has given medical treatment to a number of prominent people like Professor of Cardiology, Kremastinos, whom she considers one of the best teachers in the Greek medical community, Odysseas Elytis, and the Archbishops of Albania and Athens.
