Djoehana Wiradikarta

Raden Moehamad Djoehana Wiradikarta (born 18 September 1896 in Bandung, Indonesia – died in 1986 in Bandung) was a professor in microbiology and serology at the Bandung Institute of Technology and the faculty of medicine at Padjadjaran University, also in Bandung. He played a significant role in the development of the Indonesian higher education system. He was also one of the founders of Padjadjaran University, in particular its faculty of medicine. He was the first native Indonesian to be appointed to the position of dean of the faculty of sciences at the University of Indonesia in Bandung in 1957. He is also one of the founders of private university Universitas Nasional. Djoehana was one of five members of the committee for the establishment of the Indonesian Red Cross. Biography Djoehana was born in what was the Dutch East Indies. His father, Raden Rangga Wiradikarta, was wedana ("subdistrict head") of Majalaya south of Bandung, and belonged to the Sundanese nobility, as did his mother. Djoehana attended STOVIA (School tot Opleiding van Inlandsche Artsen, "school for the training of native physicians") and graduated in 1918. He was then appointed as a district physician in Bawean Island. After that he held various positions in the colonial government health system, in various cities in Sumatra and Java. In 1930, he was sent to Amsterdam University in the Netherlands, where he got his "European" Doctor of Medicine degree the following year. Back in the Netherlands Indies, he was the director of the public hospital of Ambarawa in Central Java when Japanese troops landed in 1942. During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, Djoehana was deputy director of the laboratory of the Eijkman Institute in Jakarta.