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Ika Pešić graduated at the Faculty for Defectology, Department of Special Pedagogy, University of Belgrade. She defended her Master’s thesis in Social Medicine at the Centre for Multidisciplinary studies, University of Belgrade, and doctoral thesis in Social Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade.
From 1979 to the present she works in the Clinic for Pulmonary Diseases of the Clinical Centre of Serbia. Until 1990 she worked at the Department for Scientific Research and Epidemiology and was engaged in organization and epidemiological monitoring and analysis of pulmonary diseases in Serbia. She participated in the project “Risk factors for pulmonary diseases in children in urban and rural environment” from 1982 to 1984, as well as in the research of smoking. Since 1990 when she developed the Department for Smoking Cessation in the Clinic for Pulmonary Diseases, she also supports the establishment and development of smoking prevention programs in pulmonary institutions throughout Serbia. Currently she works as a Chief of the Cabinet for Tobacco Prevention and Smoking Cessation.
Since 2003 she has been involved in tobacco control as a member of the National Committee for the Tobacco Control in the Ministry of Health. She actively participates in lobbing for the ratification of FCTC – WHO, and for the adoption of the Law on Protection of the Citizens from Exposure to Tobacco Smoke. She is involved in the education of health care professionals in tobacco control and in the education of teams for smoking cessation. She regularly participates in the organization of World and National No Tobacco Days. She actively participates at national and international conferences. She wrote the Monograph “20 Years of Counselling for Smoking Cessation at the Institute of Lung Disease and Tuberculosis/Clinic for Pulmology of the Clinical Centre of Serbia” and Programme for Individually Smoking Cessation.
She is a member of the Founding Board and of the Oversight Committee of the Association “Health Mission”.