Department of General Surgery №1
HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT
The Department was created in 1889 as the Department of Surgical Pathology and Therapy within the Medical Faculty of the St. Volodymyr University, whose dean from 1889 to 1897 was Professor Karl-Georg Emil Heubel.
The first Chairman of the Department was Professor Аleksandr Pavlovskii (1857-1944), Louis Pasteur’s student.
Already in 1900, for the first time in Ukraine (as well as in Russia), Professor Pavlovskii introduced boiling of surgical instruments in soda solution.
Professor Pavlovskii read lectures on microbiology with the fundamentals of aseptic processing and the science of antiseptics, on surgical pathology, fractures and dislocations, desmurgy; he paid special attention to pathological anatomy (“He who wants to be a shrewd and competent surgeon, must on his own, for a long time and tirelessly, study various diseases on the dissection table and under the microscope; only then his mental vision will reach into the depth of the tissue’s disease and the whole structure and state of the cell elements will come to life in front of him.”)
In 1914, Professor Pavlovskii wrote a paper on battlefield surgery addressing the wounds made by small-caliber bullets, purulent surgical diseases, complications after gunshot injuries and etiology thereof, peripheral nerve surgery etc.
In 1912, Professor Mikhail Diterikhs (1871-1941) became the Chairman of the Department and held this position until 1918.
In 1915, M. Diterikhs initiated the establishment of a Student’s Scientific Circle within the Department, which has remained active until today. Diterikhs was among the pioneers who made a case for and implemented emergency surgical interventions in acute appendicitis and peritonitis into clinical practice. He was the first in the world to suggest the technique of appendectomy (“On the Technique of Removal of the Vermiform Appendix”) generally accepted today. M. Diterikhs thoroughly studied the issues of bone and lung tuberculosis, which he described in his works “On the Principles of Heliotherapy of ‘Surgical Tuberculosis’”, “On Surgical Interventions in the Cases of Lung Tuberculosis”. Professor M. Diterikhs extensively studied the issues of battlefield surgery; he developed and improved splints for fractured thigh immobilization for transportation.
Professor M. Diterikhs was the author of over 130 scientific papers, including 6 monographs on joint diseases, battlefield surgery, traumatic aneurysms, hernias, Basedow’s disease, surgery of tuberculous lungs, as well as the history of medicine. “Introduction to the Clinical Aspects of Joint Diseases”, “Postsurgical Period”, “A Surgeon’s Soul” – all these monographs were written at the time when M. Diterikhs was the Chairman of the Department of General Surgery. While working in Kyiv, the scientist published over 30 scientific papers.
From 1919 to 1932 the Department was chaired by Mitrofan Moskaliov (1873-1940). During Professor M. Moskaliov’s time in this office, the Department already had a clinical specialization and the main direction of its scientific and practical activities was purulent surgery. In 1932, the Department of General Surgery of the 1st Kyiv Medical Institute was abolished, and M. Moskaliov resigned; however, until 1938 he continued to practice medicine as a consultant in treatment institutions in Kyiv. The staff of the Department of General Surgery, at the time of its dissolution, was assigned to Professor O. Krymov’s departmental surgical clinic.
In 1934 the Department’s work was resumed, and Ivan Zavialov (1880-1938) became its Chairman. In that period the Department’s site was moved to the territory of the Surgery Department of the October Revolution Kyiv City Clinical Hospital (at present – Oleksandrivska Clinical Hospital).
After Professor Zavialov’s death, from 1938 to 1939, the Department was chaired by Arkadii Lidskyi (1890-1973). Professor A. Lidskii was an innovator in the domestic surgery, the author of many new methods of surgical treatment. He developed the original surgery of retropubic retrovesical prostatectomy, pelvic floor restoration operation, ankle joint arthrodesis. He was one of the first in emergency surgery to perform stomach resection in bleeding ulcers, cholecystectomy in the acute period. In thoracic surgery, he developed a method of partial processing of the residual part of the lung for isolated processing of the components of the lung root. Long before World War II he got involved in heart surgery, i.e. started creating collateral blood circulation in angina.
Lidskyi is the author of over 200 scientific papers, including 9 monographs.
Under A. Lidskyi’s direct supervision, 14 doctoral and over 60 PhD theses were written.
From 1939 to 1941, the Chairman of the Department was Professor Leonid Koreisha (1896-1973), one of the most prominent representatives of the Academician M. Burdenko’s school, outstanding neurosurgeon, neurophysiologist, pathophysiologist.
From the beginning of Professor Koreisha’s time in the office as the Chairman of the Department of General Surgery, the list of the Department’s scientific and pedagogical activities was supplemented with the new area – neurosurgery. New major neurosurgical operations, including removal of brain tumors of complex localization, started to be performed.
L. Koreisha wrote over 100 scientific papers on the central regulation of the heart, blood vessels, breathing and neurosurgery. Under Professor Koreisha’s supervision, 8 doctoral and 14 PhD theses were written.
From 1941 to 1944 the Department was chaired by Associate Professor Borys Horodynskyi (1887-1969) – a distinguished Kyiv surgeon, successor of Professor M. Yukelson. B. Horodynskyi’s main area of research and practical activities was purulent surgery. He paid a lot of attention to abdominal surgery, especially large intestine surgery, surgical oncology, battlefield surgery. Professor Horodynskyi authored over 50 scientific works.
From 1944 to 1955 the Chairman of the Department was Ivan Ishchenko, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, major-general of the Medical Corps. During the years of World War II, I.M. Ishchenko was the surgeon-in-chief of the Southwestern front, then of the Stalingrad and Don fronts, and then again of the Southwestern front. Over the war years, he performed over three thousand operations, among which over 500 were on the brain and not less than 200 – on the spinal cord. His main interests in the scientific and practical activities included battlefield surgery, the issues of tissue transplantation and blood transfusion, the mechanisms of intracranial pressure regulation, development of surgeries on the central and peripheral nervous system. I. Ishchenko was the author of over 100 scientific works, including 3 monographs and 2 textbooks. He modified the methods of drainage of the abdominal cavity in perforated gastric and duodenal ulcer, destructive cholecystitis and appendicitis, developed the technique of paravertebral anesthesia for differential diagnostics of the abdominal cavity organs, was among the first to recommend the use of intubation potentiated anesthesia.
From 1955, after Professor I. Ishchenko moved to the Department of Departmental Surgery after academician A.P. Krymov’s death, to 1973, the Department was chaired by Mykhailo Kolomiichenko (1882-1973). Professor M. Kolomiichenko introduced a number of novel techniques of surgical interventions on esophagus, stomach, heart, lungs, gallbladder, endocrine glands etc. into clinical practice, promoted the development of thoracic surgery in Ukraine.
In 1933, he was one of the first surgeons in the Soviet Union to perform surgery on an armored heart case. Professor M. Kolomiichenko was the author of over 130 scientific works; during his time as the Department Chairman, a biochemical laboratory was created within the Department.
From 1973 to 1980 the position of the Department Chairman was held by Professor Yurii Mokhniuk (1924-2004). In 1973, Yu. Mokhniuk was elected Head of the General Surgery Department of Kyiv Medical Institute, from 1980 he chairs the Department of Departmental Surgery. Under Professor Mokhniuk’s supervision, the clinic conducted fundamental research in surgical gastroenterology, thoroughly studied the issues of surgical infections, intensive care, endoscopy. The works on equipment improvement laid the groundwork for a new functional direction in surgery. Professor Yu. Mokhniuk is the author of many inventions, over 140 research papers, including 2 monographs. Under his scientific supervision, 10 theses were written.
From September 1981 to February 2002 the Department was chaired by Professor Volodymyr Zemskov (1939-2002). The title of the PhD thesis defended by V. Zemskov in 1972 was “Comprehensive Diagnosis of Malignant Skin Melanoma”. That year he began his work in Kyiv Research Institute for Clinical and Experimental Surgery (now – the O.O. Shalimov Institute of Surgery and Transplantology under the National Academy of Medical Science of Ukraine) as a junior research associate. The work at this Institute together with Oleksandr Shalimov – the godfather of the Ukrainian surgery – made a substantial contribution to the making of Volodymyr Zemskov’s surgical genius. In 1978 he becomes a senior research associate and a division head. In 1981 he defends his doctoral thesis on the topic “Surgical Treatment of Acute Pancreatitis and Complications Thereof”; in the same year he leaves the Institute of Surgery and chairs the Department of General Surgery within Kyiv Medical Institute. In 1982, on the basis of Kyiv City Hospital No. 14, where the Department was operating at that time, Professor V. Zemskov founds Kyiv City Center for Liver, Bile Ducts and Pancreas Surgery. From 1989, Kyiv City Clinical Hospital No. 10 becomes the basis for the Department of General Surgery No. 1 together with the Center for Liver Surgery. The Center operates around the clock providing emergency aid and admitting patients not only from Kyiv, but also from the whole Ukraine and other USSR republics. In 1983, V. Zemskov received the title of a Professor. In 1985, Professor Zemskov was awarded the USSR State Prize for the development and implementation into clinical practice of the methods and technique of cryodestruction of malignant neoplasms. In 1987, he was elected a member of the World Association of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Surgery. In 1988, Professor Zemskov received the title of the Honored Worker of Science of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1995, for his medical research in the fight against cancer, Professor Zemskov receives a title of the academician of Accademia Universale “Guglielmo Marconi”, Rome, Italy; he is elected a member of the European Order of Merit А.С.О.Е.М., Brussels, Belgium, and Albert Schweitzer Society, Austria, as well as of many other international charitable non-profit organizations. In 1997, he becomes a member of the International Society of Surgery (ISS). While Professor Zemskov worked at the Department, the range of its scientific activities widened substantially. The priority directions of the Department’s activities were: treatment and prophylaxis of diseases of the liver, treatment and prophylaxis of gallstone disease and complication thereof, prophylaxis, diagnostics and treatment of microcholelithiasis, diagnostics and treatment of acute and chronic diseases of the pancreas, treatment and prophylaxis of purulent-septic complications in general surgery, immunodiagnostics and immunotherapy in surgery, efferent therapy, plastic and reconstruction surgery, optimization of the wound process in plastic surgery, comprehensive treatment of morbid obesity, comprehensive therapy of malignant neoplasms using the preparations of greater celandine, treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers combined with the diseases of hepato-pancreato-duodenum area; development of sorption detoxication methods in surgery, minimally invasive and endoscopic surgery, comprehensive diabetes mellitus treatment program (beta-cell transplantation, metabolic surgery of diabetes mellitus).
The results of the research conducted at the Department were printed in international scientific publications, including English-language ones; working groups within the Clinic develop separate scientific areas in cooperation with research and development institutes in Ukraine, universities in Austria and Germany. Professor V. Zemskov was the author of five monographs – “Surgery of the Liver”, “Sorption Detoxication in a Surgical Clinic”, “Post-Pancreatic Resection Syndrome”, “Hypothermia in Emergency Abdominal Surgery”, “Low Temperatures in Medicine” – and over 100 author’s certificates.
Under Professor Zemskov’s supervision, 17 doctoral and 43 PhD theses were defended. The Department provided postgraduate education for doctors who now work in the USA, France, Germany, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Kongo, Australia, Peru.
From February 2002 to April 2003, after Professor Zemskov’s death, the duties of the Department Chairman were performed by Yaroslav Susak (born 1964). He has 70 published scientific papers and 11 patents for inventions. Ya. Susak participated in thirteen international congresses, where he presented the Department’s achievements in treating pathologies of hepato-pancreato-biliary organs. For performing a cycle of works on this topic, Ya. Susak received the Order of Merit of the European Parliament (Brussels, Belgium) in 1997. In the same year, Ya. Susak defended a PhD thesis entitled “Significance of Biliary Microlithiasis in Choosing the Treatment Tactic for Acute Relapsing Pancreatitis”; in 2004 he defended a doctoral thesis on the topic “Diagnostics and Treatment of Non-Inflammatory Diseases of the Pancreas Complicated by Jaundice”.
Since 2003 the position of the Chair of Department of General Surgery No. 1 of Bohomolets National Medical University is held by Professor Oleksii Dronov (born 1959), an acclaimed Ukrainian surgeon, educator, scientist. The main directions of his scientific research include the surgery of the liver, bile ducts, pancreas, oncological surgery, purulent, vascular, reconstructive and plastic surgery, gynecological surgery and gynecologic oncology.
From 1982 to 1985 O. Dronov worked as a surgeon at the Emergency Care Hospital in Kharkiv and at the Central District Hospital in Bobrovytsia, Cherkasy region; since 1986 he joined the staff of Kyiv Research Institute for Clinical and Experimental Surgery (now – the O.O. Shalimov Institute of Surgery and Transplantology under the National Academy of Medical Science of Ukraine) at the Division of Surgery of the Liver, Pancreas and Portal Hypertension; from 1998 to 2003 he worked at the Division of Surgery of the Pancreas and Reconstruction Surgery of the Bile Ducts of the same Institute as a senior research associate. In 1997, he defended a PhD titled “Surgical Treatment of Chronic Pancreatitis Complicated by Pseudocysts”. O. Dronov is very active as an educator, being a lecturer at the Department of Medical Engineering of the International Solomon University. In 2003, he defended a doctoral thesis titled “Diagnostics and Surgical Treatment of Tumors of the Extrahepatic Bile Ducts”; in 2003 received the title of a Professor.
Professor O. Dronov is the author of over 400 printed works, 25 textbooks, 97 patents of Ukraine for invention, 3 USSR author’s certificates for invention, 2 methodological recommendations. He also developed 8 proposals for technical improvements.
The main first clinical base of the Department was deployed in Kyiv Central City Hospital; in 1989 it was transferred to City Clinical Hospital No. 10.
The current academic teaching staff of the Department includes 4 DMScs and 10 MD PhDs.
Annually, the Department teaches over 1,000 2nd and 3d-year students of Medical Faculties No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 (junior specialists), as well as students of the Faculty of Medical Psychology, foreign and English-speaking students. The General Surgery syllabus used by the academic teaching staff was developed by the Department in 2008 according to the requirements for implementing the credit-unit system provisions and is updated at the beginning of each academic year.
The educational process is organized in accordance with the credit-unit system as per the dynamic development requirements of the Bologna process. The credit-unit system provides for the rotation of modules in clinical disciplines and gradual learning at one Department during the second and third study years.
Practical training sessions with students are organized in conformity with the syllabi mostly at patients’ beds, in procedure rooms, surgical dressing rooms, operating rooms, diagnostics departments (practical parts).
The Department staff, at the basic department’s requirement, has developed the following syllabi: “Syllabus on General Surgery”; “Syllabus on General Surgery for the Faculty of Medical Psychology”; “Nursing Care of Surgical Patients (Practical Aspects)” and “Nursing Practice (Job-Training Program)”.
Much attention is paid to teaching foreign students.
The main areas of the Department’s research activities include surgery of chronic and acute pancreatitis, benign and malignant lesions of liver and the organs of the pancreato-duodenal area, cryosurgery, reconstructive surgery of the biliary and gastrointestinal tracts, minimally invasive surgery, along with other issues of the modern surgical science.
The Department’s research and development projects over the recent years include: “Treatment of Inflammatory and Non-Inflammatory Diseases of the Liver and Pancreas” (state registration number 0102U000783); “Development of New Methods of Diagnostics and Treatment of the Diseases of the Organs of the Pancreato-Biliary Area Complicated by Jaundice” (state registration number 0105U01319); “Development and Improvement of the Methods of Comprehensive Treatment of the Diseases of the Organs of the Pancreato-Biliary Area” (state registration number 0108U000789); “Development and Improvement of the Methods of Comprehensive Treatment of the Abdominal Cavity Organs Using Cryotechnologies” (state registration number 0111U005406 (2010-2013)); ”Development and Improvement of Minimally Invasive Methods of Surgical Treatment of the Diseases the Organs of the Pancreato-Biliary Area”.
Over the recent decades, the Department’s faculty defended 4 doctoral and 14 PhD theses.
In 2019, 1 doctoral and 3 PhD theses passed the evaluation tests.
Currently, 1 doctoral and 6 PhD theses are being finalized.
The Department’s staff has published 5 scientific and methodological guidelines for medical higher education institutions of the III-IV level of accreditation used by Ukrainian students to study surgery, 24 new developments included in the Register of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, 215 publications in Ukraine and abroad, received 54 patents of Ukraine for invention.
The Department is equipped with state-of-the-art surgical equipment, which allows to perform diagnostic and treatment procedures and operative interventions in line with the European standards of treatment of the medical conditions within the scope of the Department staff’s competence (Cryopuls cryotherapy apparatus, FUJINON duodenoscope with a video imaging system, BIOMEDICA ultrasonic device, OLYMPUS laparoscopic stack).
Each year, the faculty members of the Department provide consultations, conservative and surgical treatment of nearly 6,000 patients with pathologies of the hepato-pancreato-biliary area.
