Department of Hygiene, Occupational Safety and Health
About the department
The prerequisites for the creation of the Department of Professional Hygiene of the Kyiv Medical Institute (KMI) go back to the days of Zemstvo medicine in the last quarter of the 19th century. The intensive development of industrial production at that time was accompanied by high morbidity, accidents and widespread industrial injuries, which required the training of factory doctors. Medical congresses held in 1904, 1908, 1909 decided on the formation of factory medicine in Kharkiv, Poltava, Katerynoslav, Kherson and other provinces. This initiated the creation in the 20s of the 20th century of occupational hygiene departments within the medical institutes of Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Dnipropetrovsk.
The Department of Professional Hygiene of the Kyiv Medical Institute was founded as one of the first professional hygiene departments not only in Ukraine, but also in the territory of the former Soviet Union in 1923. In 1930, in connection with the creation of the sanitary-hygienic faculty at the Kyiv Medical Institute, its name was changed to the department of occupational hygiene. During the evacuation to Chelyabinsk during the Second World War in 1941, it was united with the department of general hygiene and returned to the status of a specialized department of occupational hygiene in 1943 after the re-evacuation of KMI to Kyiv. The creation of a clinic of occupational diseases at the department in 1961 led to its renaming to the department of occupational hygiene and occupational diseases. From 1993 to 1997, in connection with the reform of higher medical education in Ukraine and the introduction of the concept of training a general practitioner – family doctor, it changed its name to the department of general hygiene, occupational hygiene and occupational diseases. In 2017, in connection with the reorganization of the State Sanitary Service and a change in the paradigm of higher medical education, focused on the training of bachelors and masters of public health, the name of the department was changed to the department of hygiene and ecology No. 2. At the same time, the clinic of occupational diseases was transferred to the department of propaedeutics of internal diseases No. 2 of the National Medical University named after O.O. Bogomolets (NMU).
The first head of the department was a graduate of the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy (1913), professor V.Ya. Pidgaetskyi is a talented scientist with extremely high scientific, pedagogical and organizational abilities, whose fate was extremely tragic.
In the future, the department was headed by private associate professor Viktor Oleksiyovych Lebedev (1929-1941); professors: Medvid Lev Ivanovich (1943-1952), Hayk Khachaturovych Shakhbazyan (1952-1972), Andriy Musiyovych Shevchenko (1972-1993). Since 1993, the department has been headed by Oleksandr Petrovych Yavorovskyi.
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At all stages of its historical development, the heads of the department and the teams of scientific and pedagogical workers led by them, among other types of activities, invariably highlighted scientific and educational priorities, tried to solve the most relevant and most needed scientific tasks for that time and for their field of activity, and directed the results of their research to practical needs, in particular, were introduced into the educational process at the department.
Today, in connection with the reorganization of educational and scientific activity in accordance with the concept of development and tasks of public health, the requirements of European and global medical education and science, the department has expanded its scope of activity. At the undergraduate level, she teaches hygiene and ecology, occupational health and safety in the industry as mandatory disciplines for medical faculties; at the Faculty of Public Health – Occupational Health and Safety. Also, at the medical faculty, the department teaches optional subjects: hospital hygiene, environmental medicine, and at the stomatological faculty – hygiene and occupational safety of dentists. In addition, the department created a curriculum and program for training doctors in occupational hygiene at the post-graduate stage (secondary specialization). In connection with the above, a petition was filed to change the name of the department from hygiene and ecology No. 2 to hygiene, occupational safety and occupational health.
At the end of 2024-25 AD the staff of the department includes 9 positions of scientific and pedagogical workers: head O.P. Yavorovskyi, professor Yu.O. Paustovskyi, associate professors M.I. Veremey, V.I. Zenkina, T.O. Zinchenko, R.P. Brukhno, assistants Kudievskyi Y.V., Ustyak N.V., Ryabovol V.M.
The department organically combines its fruitful educational work with scientific activity. Employees of the department research the mechanisms of harmful action (pathogenesis of intoxications) and issues of occupational safety in the production and use of metal nanoparticles, their oxygen-containing and oxygen-free compounds.
Works on the scientific development of the problem of hygiene and occupational safety of medical workers; ensuring the safety of patients in healthcare facilities.
Thanks to the work of the department’s employees, the names of innocently convicted and posthumously rehabilitated occupational hygienists (V.Ya. Pidgayetskyi, M.L. Kudrytskyi), as well as national scientific priorities in issues of occupational medicine, have been returned to the national science and medical community. For the past 3 years, the department has been working in the conditions of fighting and overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and from February 2022, also in the conditions of full-scale Russian aggression.