Academician Petrovsky Boris Vasilievich: biography, contribution to medicine

The future surgeon and scientist Petrovsky Boris Vasilievich was born on June 27, 1908 in Essentuki. His father was a doctor - a medical career was a family tradition. Shortly before the revolution Petrovsky moved to Kislovodsk. There, Boris graduated from school, and then began working as a disinfectant at the local disinfection station. In addition, he graduated from shorthand, accounting and health courses.

Education

Finally, after a long preparation Petrovsky BV entered the Moscow State University, having chosen a medical faculty. He received a diploma from Moscow State University in 1930. During his studies at the university, the student chose as a specialty surgery, which is why he regularly visited the anatomical theater, improved his technique, and studied physiology. MSU offered a variety of ways to prove themselves. Many of them during the years of youth used Petrovsky Boris Vasilyevich. Achievements, in short, were not limited to successes in medicine. The student was an active participant in public life, being the chairman of the trade union committee of the Institute. In addition, he spent a lot of time at the chessboard. Petrovsky played with the future world champion and grandmaster Mikhail Botvinnik. Regular tourist trips and various Komsomol activities were regular.

With the beginning of senior courses the future surgeon was transferred to Pirogovka. The best Soviet medical intelligentsia studied there. Petrovsky began a new life stage. It was accompanied by a transition from theory to practice. In the past there were long-term theories - it's time to gain experience on real patients. Now the student required not only regular cramming, but also the development of a communication skill with the people whom he was to treat.

At the same time one of the main teachers of the future academician became the famous Nikolay Burdenko. Lectures Petrovsky read the People's Health Commissioner and Professor Nikolai Semashko. He gave the students the most important and necessary knowledge, and the students themselves loved him for virtuoso possession of the material and kindhearted disposition. Semashko on examples from his own life told about the fight against terrible epidemics and their prevention. He also shared stories about his Bolshevik life in emigration and Lenin, who once saved him from arrest. At the final stage of his stay at the university Petrovsky Boris Vasilyevich fulfilled his first independent operation.

The beginning of a scientific career

After graduation, the beginning doctor worked for a year and a half as a surgeon in the Podolsky district hospital. A young specialist was at a crossroads. He could do the organization of health care, industrial sanitation, but he finally linked his future with surgery.

In 1932, Petrovsky Boris Vasilievich began his scientific career, having received a post of research associate at the Moscow Cancer Institute. Its head was Professor Peter Herzen. Petrovsky BV showed outstanding research abilities. He studied oncological phenomena and theories of treatment of breast cancer. The surgeon also devoted a lot of time to questions of transfusiology. His first scientific article was published in 1937. She appeared in the journal Surgeon and was devoted to the prospects of surgical methods of treating cancer.

At the same time Petrovsky Boris Vasilievich defended his thesis on the topic of blood transfusion and became a candidate of medical sciences. In 1948 this work was reworked as a monograph. But even after that, the medic remained interested in the topic of blood transfusion. He studied the methods of transfusion, as well as its effect on the human body.

A family

Even at the Institute of Oncology a meeting took place, after which Boris Vasilievich Petrovsky determined his family future. The personal life of the scientist has been connected with Ekaterina Timofeeva - the employee of one of the experimental laboratories. In 1933, the couple played a wedding, and in 1936 they had a daughter, Marina. Mother at this time was finishing postgraduate studies, so the family spent some time with a hired nanny. Petrovsky and his wife had so little free time that they could only see each other late at night when they came home to sleep.

Marina was a cheerful and lively child. On summer holidays the family left for the south to Kislovodsk, where there was a small homeland of Boris Vasilyevich. His daughter and wife also went on vacation in Vyazma, where Catherine's parents lived. In 1937, at the age of 49, Lidia Petrovna's mother Petrovsky died.

At the front

Petrovsky Boris Vasilievich, whose biography was full of dramatic moments, soon after receiving the title of associate professor began to work in the field hospitals of the Red Army during the Winter War with Finland. Remained on the Karelian Isthmus, he operated many wounded and mutilated. This experience was extremely important in the conditions of the approaching conflict with Hitlerite Germany.

The Great Patriotic War that has come has made Petrovsky work for several years literally around the clock. Outstanding doctor became the leading surgeon of evacuation hospitals in the army. The doctor conducted hundreds of operations and supervised the work of a huge number of subordinates. In 1944 he was appointed a senior lecturer in the department of faculty surgery in the Leningrad Military Medical Academy. During the war, the technique of blood transfusion was improved, which was proposed by B. V. Petrovsky. Contribution to the medicine of this person is great, if only for this reason. Thanks to him, the method of introducing blood into the thoracic aorta, as well as the carotid artery, was tested.

Generalization of military experience

Military experience has made Boris Petrovsky one of the best specialists of his field in the whole country. In October 1945, he became a scientific deputy director at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Surgery, part of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. With the onset of the world, the scientific activity that Petrovsky Boris Vasilievich pursued resumed. The achievements of the scientist formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation, defended in 1947. It was devoted to the surgical treatment of gunshot wounds of the vascular system.

Since Petrovsky was one of the key domestic specialists on this topic, he was appointed responsible editor of the 19th volume of "The Experience of Soviet Medicine in the Great Patriotic War." This colossal work was issued on the initiative of the government. Each volume had its own editor - a major epidemiologist or clinician. Of course, Petrovsky Boris Vasilievich could not get into this list either. The doctor carefully selected the team of authors who eventually wrote the book. The key chapters of the publication went to the surgeon himself.

Work on the compilation of the volume lasted four years. Part of the material was based on Petrovsky's personal experience - he included in the publication many photographs made in hospitals during the war. Together with his team of authors, the researcher looked at and analyzed about one million unique case histories. They were preserved in the Leningrad Military Medical Museum. Working in the northern capital over the 19th volume, Petrovsky was compelled to part with his own family, who had recently returned from evacuation to Moscow. The creation of the book was reduced to the comparison of a huge array of data in punched cards and tables. Also for the first time, the methods of conducting complex operations were formulated and systematized, the author of which was Boris Petrovsky. The surgeon knew what he was writing about - at the front he held about 800 of them, and all of them were related to gunshot wounds.

In Hungary

After the war, the scientist taught a lot in higher educational institutions of Moscow, Leningrad, Budapest. In the Hungarian People's Republic he went according to the decision of the Soviet government. In the University of Budapest, Petrovsky in 1949 - 1951. Supervised a surgical clinic at the medical faculty. The Hungarian authorities asked Moscow for help. The best socialist surgeons were sent to the new socialist state, which should have been trained from the ground up in the friendly country by the first generation of professionals in this medical field.

Then Petrovsky for the first time after the war had to leave for a long time his homeland. Of course, he could not refuse the government's proposal, since he understood the entire responsibility of the assignment and its importance in strengthening the relations between Hungary and the Soviet Union. The famous surgeon in his memoirs compared the voyage to Budapest with another trip to the "front". Thanks to Petrovsky, Hungary has its own thoracic surgery, traumatology, blood transfusion and oncology. The country appreciated the work of a specialist on merit. The surgeon was awarded the state order "For Merit", and was elected one of the honorary members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1967, the University of Budapest made Petrovsky his honorary doctor.

One day a member of the Politburo Kliment Voroshilov came to the People's Republic of Hungary . He had to make a report in Parliament. However, the Soviet functionary became seriously ill. He disagreed with the diagnoses of the doctors and persuaded them to conduct a survey Petrovsky Boris Vasilyevich. Photos of the former People's Commissar were regularly published in Pravda - he was one of the most members of the Communist Party. However, Petrovsky knew him not through newspapers, but personally. Back in the 20-ies. Voroshilov often met with students during his studies at Moscow State University. In 1950, in Petrovsky Petrovsky put Clement Efremovich a diagnosis - intestinal paresis.

Academician

After returning to his homeland in 1951, Boris Vasilievich began to work at the Moscow Medical Institute named after Pirogov, where he headed the Department of Faculty Surgery. On it the teacher remained for five years. In the same 1951 Boris Petrovsky participated in two international congresses - surgeons and anaesthesiologists.

From 1953 to 1965 years. He served as chief surgeon in the Fourth Directorate of the Ministry of Health of the USSR. In 1957 he became an academician. Petrovsky Boris Vasilievich, whose biography is an example of a doctor who devoted all his time to the cause of a lifetime, deservedly became a director at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Clinical and Experimental Surgery.

The scientist received numerous awards and awards. So, in 1953, the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences awarded him the Burdenko Prize for a monograph on surgical methods for treating cancer of the cardia and esophagus. In addition, the scientist persistently talked about the need for investment in new areas - anesthesiology and resuscitation. Time has shown that he is right - these specialties have become an important part of all medical practice. In 1967, Petrovsky published a monograph "Medical Anesthesia", in which he summarized his experience of using nitrous oxide.

Minister of Health of the USSR

In 1965, the first successful transplantation of the human kidney was performed in the Soviet Union. This operation was conducted by Petrovsky B. V. The biography of the surgeon was full of achievements, to which one can add the word "for the first time" - so, he first prosthetized the mitral valve of the heart with a seamless mechanical fixation. In the same year, 1965, he became head of the Ministry of Health of the USSR, having served in this position for 15 years - until 1980.

Before he was in his new post, Petrovsky met Leonid Brezhnev and explained the key problems of domestic medicine in his theses. Soviet health care suffered from a low material base of polyclinics and hospitals. A serious shortcoming was the lack of medicines and equipment, which sometimes made it impossible to operate and prevent complications associated with infection. It was with all these and many other flaws that the new minister had to fight.

For 15 years in office Petrovsky BV (surgeon, scientist and just a good organizer) took part in the creation and implementation of all major projects of this important industry. The Minister paid special attention to cooperation with foreign countries. The expansion of professional contacts allowed the introduction of new technologies, the opportunity for a large number of specialists to get acquainted with foreign experience, to give impetus to the development of new medical sciences, etc. Boris Boris Petrovsky exchanged scientific knowledge with Finland, France, USA, Sweden, Britain, Italy, Japan , Canada and other countries. The coordination of treaties, cooperation programs and other important documents went directly through the Ministry of Health and its head.

Thanks to the efforts of Boris Petrovsky, dozens of new multidisciplinary, specialized and scientific-research medical institutions were built. The Minister initiated the creation of institutes for studying gastroenterology, influenza, pulmonology, eye diseases, transplantation of tissues and organs. Throughout the country, new polyclinics and hospitals opened. There are modern plans for designing buildings of these public health facilities. A special commission was set up under the Ministry, which considered options for mock-ups. New all-Union projects of the regional, district, children's, psychiatric hospitals, emergency stations, maternity hospitals, polyclinics, sanepid stations were approved. At the same time, the education reform was carried out. New medical specialties appeared in medical universities. Everything was done in order for a huge country to have a sufficient number of highly qualified personnel.

In 1966, the Day of the Medical Worker was celebrated in the USSR for the first time. The main solemn meeting on this occasion was held in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Boris Petrovsky read at this event the main report, which briefly summarized the results of the development of Soviet health, as well as prospects and goals. It is interesting that the Day of Medical Worker became an example for other specialties. By analogy with it, a professional teacher's holiday has appeared, and so on.

Petrovsky's Scientific School

In the postwar years, several new theoretical medical schools appeared in the Soviet Union. They were groups of specialists developing a certain direction of medical practice. Patriarch of one of these schools was Petrovsky Boris Vasilyevich himself. Minister of Health of the USSR, while still a young surgeon who worked at the Oncology Institute, I realized how important it is to acquire a team of like-minded people.

His own school was necessary to him in order to implement a large-scale plan: to create a new medical direction. It was reconstructive surgery. She had a key principle - to amputate and cut as few organs and tissues as possible. Preserving them, the surgeons of this school resorted to the use of artificial implants of metal and plastic. With their help, tissues were replaced, and organs were also transplanted. Petrovsky, becoming a recognized specialist, defended and defended this idea.

The scientist managed to grow a whole galaxy of professionals and adherents of his theoretical school. The main platform for spreading his ideas, Boris Petrovsky, made the Department of Hospital Surgery at the Moscow Sechenov Medical Institute, which he headed for more than thirty years - since 1956. This place has become one of the most famous and authoritative educational institutions of its direction in the country.

Theorist and practitioner

In 1960, Boris Petrovsky and three other colleagues were awarded the Lenin Prize. Surgeons were awarded for the development and application in practice of new operations on large vessels and the heart. Before becoming Minister of Health of the USSR, Boris Vasilievich on his own example argued that physicians can discover and apply new methods of treating patients whose ailments had previously seemed fatal. Once in the government, the scientist faced a new challenge. Now he was in charge of medicine throughout the country. The fact that the surgeon invariably was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of the VI - X convocations, clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of his activities.

Back in 1942, the scientist joined the CPSU (b). In 1966, a new candidate for membership in the CPSU Central Committee appeared in the party. He became Petrovsky BV Academician retained this status until 1981. In addition, in 1966 - 1981 years. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Most of the life of the famous surgeon lived in Moscow, where he died in 2004 at the age of 96 years. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.