Nikolai Amosov

Amosov was the recipient of multiple orders including Hero of Socialist Labour title, two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War, two Orders of the Red Star, and Lenin Prize. In 2008 he was recognized as second after Yaroslav I the Wise among the Great Ukrainians by a public poll conducted for the TV show The Greatest Ukrainians.

By the order of Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine № 128-p of 12 March 2003 the Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine was named after Amosov.

In 2003 a streets in Kyiv was named after Amosov and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine established the Mykola Amosov Prize which is awarded for the significant scientific works in the field of the cardio-vascular surgery and transplantology.

In the 1989 Soviet Union legislative election he was elected into the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union as an independent candidate in Kyiv (he had declared his support for People's Movement of Ukraine). Amosov believed that the Western society should serve as an ideal for the USSR.

In 1983 Amosov's cardiac surgery clinic was reorganized in Kyiv Research Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery and in the Ukrainian Republican cardiovascular surgical center. Each year, the institute fulfilled about 3000 heart operations, including over 1500 - with extra-corporeal blood circulation. Amosov was the first director of the Institute, and since 1988 - Honorary Director of the Institute.

Born to Russian peasants, Nikolai fought in World War II. After the war he moved to Kyiv and in 1965 wrote The Thoughts and the Heart, selling millions of copies. He was the recipient of multiple awards.

Amosov was one of the initiators of the widespread introduction into our country surgery for diseases of the lungs, has made a lot of new developments in this problem. His research contributed to improving the treatment of diseases of the lungs. In 1961, Amosov was awarded Lenin Prize for the work of lung surgery.

Along with surgery Amosov paid much attention to contemporary problems of biological, medical and psychological cybernetics. From 1959 to 1990 he headed the Department of Biological Cybernetics in the Institute of Cybernetics. Under the leadership of Amosov fundamental studies of the self-regulation of the heart systems were conducted and the issues of machine diagnosis of heart disease were studied, elaboration and creation of physiological models of "internal environment", computer modeling of basic mental functions, and some socio-psychological mechanisms of human behavior were done. Innovative approach, the original views of Amosov were widely recognized in our country and abroad. For his research in the field of Bio-cybernetics in 1978 and 1997 he was awarded the State Prize of Ukraine.

In the future, the main focus of Amosov's work was the heart surgery. In 1955 he was the first in Ukraine began treatment for heart diseases surgically, in 1958, one was one of the first in the Soviet Union to introduce into the practice the method of artificial blood circulation (in 1963), Amosov was first in the Soviet Union to perform the mitral valve replacement, and in 1965 for the first time in the world he created and introduced into practice the anti-thrombotic heart valves prosthesis. Amosov elaborated a number of new methods of surgical treatment of heart lesions, the original model of heart-lung machine. His work on the surgical treatment of heart diseases won a State Prize of Ukraine (1988) gold medals (1967, 1982) and Silver Medal (1978) of the Exhibition of Economic Achievements of the USSR.

In 1955, Amosov created and headed the first in the USSR Chair of Thoracic Surgery for the postgraduate studies and later the Chair of Anesthesiology. These Chairs have prepared more than 700 specialists for Ukraine and other republics.

In 1952, Amosov, as a prominent specialist in thoracic surgery, was invited to the Kyiv Institute of Tuberculosis, to guide specially created clinic of thoracic surgery.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Amosov, Doctor of Science, Professor (December 6, 1913 in Olkhovo, Novgorod Governorate, Russian Empire – December 12, 2002 in Kyiv, Ukraine) was a Soviet and Ukrainian doctor of Russian origin, heart surgeon, inventor, best-selling author, and exercise enthusiast, known for his inventions of several surgical procedures for treating heart defects.

Amosov was born December 6, 1913. in the village Olkhovo (near Cherepovets) of Vologda Governorate, Russia to Russian peasants. In 1932 he graduated from Cherepovets Mechanical College, followed by 3 years of work as a shift mechanic at the Arkhangelsk electric power station. In 1939 he graduated from the Arkhangelsk Medical Institute, and in 1940 - with distinction from the All-Union Correspondence Industrial Institute. During World War II he was at the front as the leading surgeon of a field mobile hospital PPG-2266. From 1947 to 1952 he worked as chief surgeon of the Bryansk region and at that time he began to be widely engaged in thoracic surgery, he conducted extensive scientific work and in 1953 he presented his doctoral dissertation.