1913–2002
Mykola Amosov
Pioneering heart surgeon
He was the first in Ukraine to operate on the heart with artificial circulation, and at 84 he had heart surgery himself. Mykola Amosov, heart surgeon and writer, founded an institute in Kyiv that saved thousands of lives and created his own health system.
Key accomplishments
- First in Ukraine to perform heart surgery with a heart-lung machine (1958)
- First mitral valve replacement in the USSR (1963); created the world’s first anti-thrombotic heart valve prostheses (1965)
- Founded the Kyiv institute of cardiovascular surgery that now bears his name
- Books Thoughts and the Heart and Reflections on Health; the “limits and loads” health system
A surgeon from a drowned village
Mykola Amosov was born in 1913 in the village of Olkhove in the Vologda region of Russia. The village is no longer on the map: it was flooded by the Rybinsk Reservoir. In the Second World War Amosov was the leading surgeon of a field hospital. In 1952 he moved to Kyiv, where he spent the rest of his life.
How to fix a heart
In Kyiv Amosov began with lung surgery and then moved on to the heart. In 1958 he was the first in Ukraine to operate with artificial circulation, where a machine takes over the heart’s work for a while. In 1963 he was the first in the USSR to replace a mitral heart valve with a prosthesis, and in 1965 he created the world’s first heart valve prostheses designed to prevent blood clots. His clinic grew into an institute of cardiovascular surgery that now bears his name. In time it was performing about 3,000 heart operations a year.
A doctor who wrote for everyone
Amosov wrote books for general readers, among them Thoughts and the Heart and The Book of Happiness and Misfortune. He developed a system of “limits and loads”, exercise plus moderation in eating, and tested it on himself for years.
Why it matters today
Amosov showed that science, hard work and discipline save lives. In 2008 viewers of the TV project Great Ukrainians voted him second, right after Yaroslav the Wise.
