Department Surgery №1

History of the Department

Department of Surgery №1. The oldest Department of the University, the first clinic of Medical Faculty established at the University in 1844 according to the new status of the medical faculties and was named the Department of Faculty Surgery. Professor V.O. Karavaiev, a world-renowned surgeon and a former student and follower of M.I. Pyrogov, was the first chief of the Department in the first 40 years of its existence.

This Department has a rich and famous history. After V.O. Karavaiev the Department was led by renowned Ukrainian surgeons, who glorified the University and all our surgery. Their science-related, clinical and pedagogical activity made them the pride of the University. There is an impressive list of famous names, leading this Department for a long time: O.H.Rinek, L.A.Malynovskyi, M.M.Volkovych, Ye.G.Cherniakhivskyi, O.P. Krymov, I.M.Ishchenko, I.M. Matiashyn.

First, in 1844, the University surgical clinic was located on the first floor of the University’s main building and was designed for 20 beds for patients with surgical and eye disorders, and consisted of three chambers, operating, insulator and classrooms. For 25 years, the clinic had exactly the above-written structure.
Dean of the medical faculty V.O.Karavaiev has improved the University and medical education, also was the founder of differential medical science.
O.H.Rinek (1837-1916) was the head of the clinic from 1881 until 1893. Pedagogical and clinical skills of O.H. Rinek were formed directly under the influence of V.O. Karavaiev. O.H.Rinek had brilliant surgical techniques. He had a high surgeons and scientific reputation. Under the O.H. Rinek’ supervision, systematic investigations of the transplantation of mucous membranes in the little known at that moment field of plastic surgery were started in the clinic. During this period, the teaching of surgery at the Department has continued the traditions of V.O.Karavaiev and reached a high scientific level.

Professor M.A. Malynovskyi (1854-1915) was the head of the Department from 1893 until 1911. And then his career was directly related to neurosurgery. Some questions regarding surgical training concerning operations on the nervous system were researched in the work of M.A. Malynovskyi “Surgical intervention for nervous system disorders” (1893) for the first time. The author also presented the complex principle based on a surgeon and neurologist’s collective decision about questions concerning diagnosis and (if it’s necessary) surgical treatment. His work “About brain abscess” (1981) is also very important for the development of Ukrainian surgery. He defends the position that surgery is the most optimal treatment of brain abscess.

M.M.Volkovych was the first scientist who combined otology and laryngology into one clinical discipline. In 1986 he developed a way to for a nose from a finger, which he called the “Russian way.” M.M. Volkovych defined the direction in otolaryngology surgery (especially in the treatment of malignant tumors). The recent studies fully confirmed the validity of this direction. In his practical and scientific activity, M.M.Volkovych paid great attention to the development of orthopedics and traumatology. He suggested various convenient, simple cardboard and plaster bandages which didn’t put intense pressure on muscles. Volkovych’s braces with straps had remarkable popularity, and they also are used nowadays for immobilizing a hip fracture. In his work “On the extirpation of a goiter” (1885). M.M.Volkovych described new questions about myxedema. This paper presents interesting data about the microscopic structure of the excreted pathological changed thyroid gland.
These observations were completely published in 1888 in the reports of a Committee of the Clinical Society in London.

M.M.Volkovych contributed many innovations in stomach surgery. In his paper “On abdominal incisions” (1898) he described the appendectomy surgery incision. He was the first scientist who defined one of the earliest acute appendicitis symptoms – the unexpected onset of pain in epigastria.
Volkovych is a name that is associated with the evolution of views on gallbladder and biliary tract surgery. At the beginning of twentieth century he was one of the first, who started to work on the surgical treatment of gallstone disease. Contrary to the point of view of a great West European surgeon Ker, M.M.Volkovych suggested and carried out so-called subserous removals of a gallbladder with the further closing of its bed with peritoneum before Vitushnia.
He was the first surgeon in the Russian Empire who operated on the patient with the stomach and esophagus combustion and published a report about this in the journal “Russian doctor.”

M.M.Volkovych developed a new area of surgery: spine and thoracic surgery, radical operations on the lungs.
He made a considerable contribution to gynecology and urology. Volkovych paid much attention to pedagogical work. Under his supervision, all students carefully and responsibly executed their duties and were attentive to patients.

He was demanding to himself and others, had a high level of culture, was honest and frank, and tried to convey these qualities to students. Pedagogical work was art for him, and he introduced active teaching.

It is important to know that scientific discoveries, proposals, and theories of Volkovych (and his students) are still actual in modern science.
The main priority of scientific activity in the M.M.Volkovych’s opinion was its social value.

Ye.G.Cherniakhivskyi was the head of the Department of Surgery from 1923 until 1929, a Kyiv University graduate, student of M.M.Volkovych.
Ye.G.Cherniakhivskyi paid much attention to the complicated questions concerning surgical infection and blood vessel surgery, and he had an excellent operation experience in this area. He also has improved surgical teaching. He organized lectures for the private docent courses “Surgical diagnosis” (Yu.Yu.Kramarenko), “Surgery of the abdominal cavity” (A.Ye.Gusman),” Method of research of surgical patient” (I.M.Ishchenko), “Children’s surgery” (V.I.Gedroits). Professor V.I.Gedroits was the head of the Department of Surgery from 1929 until 1930.

Ye.G.Cherniakhivskyi popularized and started to use the method of blood transfusion in 20-ies in Ukraine. He was the first Kyiv surgeon who successfully sewed the wound in the heart and summarized the literature data in May 1904.

In 1930 O.P.Krymov was the head of the Department of Surgery (1872- 1954). O.P.Krymov was a student and follower of such Russian surgeons as O.O.Bobrov, S.P.Fedotov, S.I.Spasokukotskyi, M.I.Diakonov, and at the same time, he saved and developed the best traditions of his predecessors at the Department – V.O.Karavaiev, M.M.Volkovych, and others.

The scientific heritage of O.P.Krymov can be divided into 4 research directions: military field surgery, kidney disease and around the kidney tissue, herniology, history of Ukrainian medicine.

The educational school, in the person of O.P.Krymov, had an excellent pedagogue. His textbook “a Course of special surgery” (1940) for 15 years was the medical institution’s leading study guide. O.P.Krymov read the lectures sharing his great enthusiasm, attended practical classes, accustomed future doctors of clinical thinking, and passed them his many years’ experience.

O.P.Krymov was a scientist, doctor, and pedagogue, and he was also actively involved in social work. In 1919, the Kyiv scientists elected him a Chairman of the Physical-medical society. Since 1928 he was the head of Kyiv surgical society, and in 1948 he was elected as the Chairman of the Congresses of the Surgeons of USSR.
Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Honoured Scientist of USSR, Professor I.M.Ishchenko was the head of the Department of Surgery from 1955 until 1968.

Scientific activity of I.M.Ishchenko had the characteristic features: inexhaustible interest to a wide range of interests regarding surgery questions, fresh response to urgent surgical problems. I.M.Ishchenko became a good experimenter when he held the head of the Department (1933-1936) of experimental surgery of the Institute of experimental biology and pathology I.M.Ishchenko’s scientific result is complex scientific research. It is necessary to note that he has got scientific contacts (based on the complex approach) with morphologists, biochemist, therapists, oncologists, physicists, mathematicians, and others. The pedagogical talent of I.M.Ishchenko was perhaps the most outstanding part of his activity. His lectures were always fascinating. When demonstrating a patient, he could identify and extract the individuality of a patient, and in this way, the student remembered the patient and the general picture of a disease. I.M.Ishchenko tried to give students a system of modern views and logically scientific schemes. He believed that clinics should teach students, give them medical materials, and never be filled with one or two groups of patients.

From 1954 until 1966, I.M.Ishchenko was elected a Chairman of the Ukrainian society of surgeons, member of the Board of the USSR Society of surgeons.
Professor G.M.Matiashyn, a former student of the Donetsk school of surgeons, was elected on a post of the head of the Department of faculty surgery in 1968, and he worked in this position until 1979. His talent was a combination of humane doctor, teacher, scientist, and public person talent. His research interests concerned such problems as clinical transfusiology, reconstructive surgery of the gastrointestinal tract, diagnostics, and treatment of the digestive system’s malignant tumors, diseases of the liver and biliary tracts, organization of surgical service. G.M.Matiashyn published the monograph “Total Plasticity of a Gullet Thick Gut”. He described an improved methodology of colonic esophagoplasty using the left half of the colon, improved the formation of esophageal-intestinal and interintestinal anastomoses. This book is a desktop textbook for specialists of reconstructive surgery. He developed the methods that could clearly define the boundaries of the spreading of tumors of the esophagus.

The works of Professor G.M.Matiashyn on the problems of emergency surgery, first of all, the publications, which reported the theoretical and practical issues of thromboses and embolism mesenteric vessels, are very remarkable. In these papers, he presented some new theoretical principles used in work “About the single doctrine of surgery.” An experienced teacher-innovator G.M.Matiashyn saw new prospects for surgery development (organizational, methodological, diagnostic, teaching) and has successfully realized them. When he was the head of the Department, he created a modern intensive care unit, a proctological clinic, which since 1986 became the Republican center, equipped educational block with excellent course stands, created a library of slides. At the same time, he had the position of the chief surgeon of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine; he spent lot of time improving the Republic’s surgical service.

Yu.M.Mohniuk was the head of the Department from 1980 until 1989; he continued the Department’s practical and scientific traditions. Outstanding surgery A.A.Amosov was his teacher. This cooperation allowed Yu.M.Mohniuk to master surgery of the heart and lungs and influence his clinical thinking formation. He was the first in the country who started to work out treatment methods for aortic valve disease.

We should note that traditionally during the long history of the University, starting from Professor M.M.Volkovych’ period, the head of the Department of faculty surgery was also elected a Chairman of the scientific surgical society. This tradition also was saved by Yu.M.Mohniuk. During many days, surgeons from city and the region meet in the Department of faculty surgery’s audience twice a month to discuss the most important theoretical and clinical problems of surgery. The head of these meetings was Yu.M.Mohniuk. Scientific and pedagogical traditions of surgeons of the clinic were developed in the papers and activities of the Department’s staff, under the supervision of Professor Yu.V.Baltaitys. In 1989 he became the Head of the Department. He and the clinic staff participated in a massive work on improvement of surgery teaching, taking into account the conditions of the increased role of technical training and higher education reforms. The contribution to the science of the clinic collective, under supervising of Yu.V.Baltaitys was severe. Under his supervision, there were successfully improved aspects concerning conservative and restorative operations on the colon, diagnostics, and treatment of surgical diseases of the abdominal cavity with the comprehensive implementation of modern endoscopic technologies.

Most of the organizational and tactical recommendations of the Department collective were introduced in Ukraine. Original methods for recovery operations and the questions about colon pathophysiology were reported in the lectures and research talks. Professor Yu.V.Baltaitys made presentations at the University and surgical associations of the USA, Germany, Israel. In many years’ activity of the Department heads – scientific, pedagogical, organizational, and social – we can see a continuity. They had creative minds, optimism, great erudition, science initiative, brilliant surgical technique. They were the founders of schools and organizations of the surgical community.

Later after prof. Baltaitis Y.V. the Department was headed by prof. Zaharash M.P. and prof. Bilyansky L.S. who continued the traditions of the Department and introduced their innovations.

Currently, Prof. is elected head of the Department. Poida O.I.