Through war and pandemics, Hungary's oldest GP still finds joy in healing at 97

For Kormendi, who had his own COVID-19 vaccine shot in January, the coronavirus pandemic is just the latest in a series of upheavals and challenges that have marked his long life. Photos: REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

Istvan Kormendi says he was inspired from his early childhood by the example of his father, who was also a GP. He still lives in the high-ceilinged old apartment on the Buda side of the Danube river where his family moved when he was just six.

“The whole milieu destined me for this... and when it became obvious that I wanted to be a doctor, my father introduced me to the profession, ” he told Reuters, sitting behind an antique desk that his father bought in 1920.