Professor SERGEY ALEXANDROVICH SUMIN, Head of the Department of Anesthesiology, Reanimatology and Intensive Care of INO KSMU, tells about how anesthesiology and reanimatology developed.
✅This date is timed to the fact that 177 years ago, on October 16, 1846 in Boston (USA), dentist William Morton performed public anesthesia with ether. The anesthesia proved effective and the operation was performed in complete silence.
✅In Russia, a significant role in the development of anesthesia and its introduction into clinical practice was played by the Medical Faculty of Moscow University and the anesthesia committees established under it in 1847 under the leadership of A.M. Filomafitsky. These committees studied various ways of introducing ether and other substances into the organism of animals. Already at the end of 1847, in Russia and in many European countries, ether began to be used in clinical conditions.
✅Morton’s contemporaries believed that general anesthesia was second in importance to mankind after the invention of book printing. Apparently, this was the idea behind the creation of a monument in Boston called the Monument to Ether. It is the world’s only monument to the medicinal remedy.
✅ Since 1942, the use of curare-based myorelaxants in anesthesiology began. This caused the fourth revolution in surgery after the era of asepsis and antisepsis, the discovery of general anesthesia and the arrival of antibiotics. All of these allowed surgery to move to a qualitatively different level.
✅ December 19, 1959 was issued an order of the Ministry of Health of the USSR, in which there was a “Regulation on the doctor-anesthesiologist”. From that moment, a new medical profession – doctor-anesthesiologist – was legalized in the USSR. After 10 years, in 1969, the name of the medical specialty of anesthesiology was changed to the name of anesthesiology-reanimatology. It remains so to this day.
An invaluable contribution to the formation of anesthesiology-animatology in our region was made by the staff of the Kursk Regional Hospital. The first documentary evidence dates back to 1901. Thus, in the reports it is written that “… chloroformed always senior paramedic I.I. Denisov”.
✅The first doctor in Kursk OKB, officially hired as an anesthesiologist in 1960 was surgeon A.K. Mikhailenko. Since 1962 he already headed the anesthesiology group, and in 1965 it was reorganized into the Department of Anesthesiology.
✅ At the same time, anesthesiology departments began to be established in the leading medical institutions of Kursk. In October 1974, there were 12 resuscitation beds for the entire Kursk region, including Kursk, and today there are more than 300 of them. On the basis of the regional clinical hospital in those years doctors and nurses of many medical institutions of Kursk and Kursk region were trained in anesthesiology and resuscitation.
Teaching of anesthesiology in our university began in 1965, with the arrival at the Department of General Surgery assistant M.L. Tatarsky (1932 – 2010). On October 21, 1999, in accordance with the decision of the Academic Council, the rector of KSMU professor A.V. Zavyalov issued an order “On creation of the Department of Anesthesiology, Reanimatology and Intensive Therapy of FPO”. Over the past 22 years, more than 3000 physicians have been trained at the Department, including more than 500 in internship and residency.
The result of many years of educational and methodical work of the department was the creation of a set of educational literature on anesthesiology-resuscitation for all forms of education: for students of medical schools and colleges; for students of institutions of higher professional education and for training of personnel of higher qualification. At present the department continues to develop dynamically.