Prof dr Sci. med Dr Maksim Šternić (1921-1999), was born in Belgrade at Varos kapija (City Gate), in a part of the city he loved most in his life and came back in some difficult moments of his life. He derived from decent, old bourgeois family whose three earlier generations were born in Belgrade. In his home town, he finished the elementary school “Kralj Petar I” (“The King Peter I”) and the First Boys’ High School. In his early youth, he developed a series of positive features that he cherished throughout his life, and therefore, he grew up into mature, decisive and courageous person. He enrolled the School of Medicine in 1940, but had to discontinue his medical studies because the World War II began. He continued his studies not before 1945, after the liberation of country. As early as in his 16, he entered the SKOJ (The League of Yugoslav Communist Youth), and on August 2, 1941, he joined the partizans where he spent 4 years during the war. He was a 1941-Testimonial holder and awarded other medals, too. As a medical student, he was very interested in psychiatry, and he opted very early for this subspecialty in his profession. His peers remembered him as extraordinary handsome, widely educated, talented and free-minded person. He started with his scientific career very early, during his studies, when he was elected undergraduate assistant in biology. Full of life, juvenile energy (that was maintained for life) and scholar curiosity, he amazed his younger colleagues and passed on to them his zeal and enthusiasm for studying the science of life as well as prerequisite for caring for medical profession. He graduated from the School of Medicine as military fellowship holder; although he worked as military doctor in Kumanovo, Macedonia, from 1951-1953, engaged in malaria control, his restless and ardent nature of a warrior and early resistance fighter could not be satisfied by the role of military doctor, and therefore, he was demobilized by his own will in 1953. He was immediately employed at the Neuropsychiatry Clinic in Belgrade. Thus, he was given a chance to get further advanced training and show his creative capacities. He passed Board Examination in neuropsychiatry in 1957. He was elected an assistant-professor in neuropsychiatry in 1955, promoted to associate-professor in 1864, and part-time professor in 1973. He was elected a full professor in 1982. He defended his doctoral thesis in 1980, related to subject of smoking problem and its impact on health (“Morbidity and mortality in Belgrade resulting from smoking”). Professor Dr. Maksim Sternic was an originator of forensic psychiatry and contributed significantly by original studies to this field (e.g., expert evaluation of non-material damage, definition of testator capacities, etc.), still applied in forensic psychiatry. Other than these, he was a founder of the Center for Forensic Psychiatry and, several years, its executive manager. In three terms, he was a Chairman of the Forensic-psychiatry Board of the School of Medicine. In the capacity of highly skilled forensic-psychiatry expert, from the beginning to the end of working life, he stood firm and persevering teacher in view of commitment to professional and scientific truth. Still remembered are his famous final arguments and strict principles he stood for in courts of law, at the meetings of Forensic Medicine Boards, workshops of the Section of Psychiatry and discussion in the Serbian Medical Society. He was characterized by extraordinary ability to differentiate relevant from irrelevant, what was of a special significance in forensic psychiatry. He made an effort to point to the importance of such approach to generations of students, residents and junior associates. He directed them to such method of work and taught them to think in psychiatric way. His lectures are still remembered by numerous generations of doctors, psychologists and even lawyers, since, in one period of his service, he gave lectures on forensic medicine at the Law School, University of Belgrade. He passed on his knowledge to younger generations using clear and articulate language, with an attempt to freshen up sometimes monotonous subjects, and make them magically interesting and intriguing. He uncompromisingly advocated for doctrinal attitudes in our community, taking care of national folklore and stratified structure of Serb being. He had an extraordinary knowledge of Serb history and all his life he was devoted to his people and his Serbia he loved indefinitely. He was the first doctor in our community to lay the foundations of traffic injuries medicine. His original scientific approach is still in use in traffic injuries medicine and expert evaluation of accidents (“The effect of low doses of alcohol to driving capacities”) as well as his formula of retrograde calculation of alcoholemia. Even in this field he was famous for his uncompromising attitude. From 1974 to 1980, Professor Sternic was a member and then president of the Managing Board and subsequently, Director of the Clinic of Neuropsychiatry.
Professor Sternic was an author of over hundred papers in psychiatry, forensic psychiatry and traffic injuries medicine. Besides, he was an author of monograph entitled “Selected chapters from forensic psychiatry”. He elaborated the basis of psychiatric propedeutics (with Professor Dr. Milovanovic), which was an introduction to special psychiatry, and has been still unsurpassable reading for generations of Belgrade students and young doctors until these days. Finally, Professor Sternic will be remembered for his pioneering and continual engagement in domain of health education of Serbian people, particularly when the fight against smoking was in question. With astonishing energy he fought against this “multiple evil”. Such fight resulted in monograph “Smoking” in 1981. This inspiring intellectual, sometimes not fully understood by his associates, was very much aware of the fact that psychiatry was a discipline increasingly going deep into politics, philosophy and social developments, and therefore, he tried, as energetically as possible, to retrieve it to medical boundaries. Professor Dr. Maksim Sternic, Maki as everyone actually called him, was one of rare and brave visionaries not only of disastrous diktat leading to disintegration of public health, but also of some other, tragic trends in our society and events in our community, and for these reasons he most commonly found himself isolated. Unfortunately, the forthcoming events after he passed away showed that he had been right. Everlasting enthusiast, full of juvenile energy, uncompromising fighter in his soul, honest and open-minded, Professor Dr. Maksim Sternic was and still is an example of dynamic and sport spirit, who integrated intellectual and physical in the best way.