History of the Amur SMA

In 1952, on the 23rd of June the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on foundation of Blagoveshchensk State Medical Institute (BSMI) in 1952, on the 1st August in Blagoveshchensk on the Amur is issued. The decree contains the information about annual enrolment of 200 students and also about construction of a standard hostel (1953) and educational building (1954). It was a very complicated period when the Institute and hostel buildings were being erected, their supply with equipment was being carried out and the teaching staff was being formed. The teaching staff of the Institute had to be engaged in teaching and scientific activities as well. According to the order of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR N.F. Shevchenko (the Head of the Amur PHRD) prepared the base, accepted the first teachers and directed the first students’ enrolment.

Boris Nikolaevich Anfimov was the first rector of BSMI. Being an Assistant Professor, Candidate of Medical Science, anatomist, he was the Head of the Department of General Anatomy of the Gorky medical Institute before leaving for Blagoveshchensk. Medical Institutes of higher education of our country helped to form the base of a new Institute (furniture, textbooks, visual aids, laboratory utensils and so on). Due to different every day circumstances and according to the direction of the Ministry of Public Health skilled specialists came to Blagoveshchensk. They were ready to share their professional experiences with students, to serve as an example for future doctors. The first teachers of BSMI laid the foundation leaning on which BSMI (now – the Amur SMA) became one of the best medical Institutes of higher education. We shall refer only to some names of the BSMI founders.

Professor Kira Aleksandrovna Mescherskaya is the representative of the Leningrad school of biologists-evolutionists. At the Department of Pharmacology she founded a creative laboratory to study hypocholesteremic effect of home preparation – beta-sitosterin. Professor K.A. Mescherskaya laid perspective bases of investigations of medicinal flora of the Far East. Professor Vladimir Anatol’evich Dorovskikh developed this direction, having founded his own scientific school.

Professor Samuil Maksimilianovich Dionesov is the first Head of the Department of Normal Physiology, a disciple of an Academician, Nobel Prize winner I.P. Pavlov and Professor L.A. Orbeli. S.M. Dionesov is a scholar of authority, the author of two monographs, devoted to physiology of algesia, a member of the editorial board of the All-Union academic “Physiological journal named after I.M. Sechenov.”

Assistant Professor Alexander Evgen’evich Borodin was the Head of the Department of Biochemistry. Galina Petrovna Borodina was his reliable friend, a companion –in- arms and wife. She worked at the same department more than half of a century.

Since 1954 Assistant Professor Sergey Grigor’evich Ptitsyn was at the head of BSMI. He led the Institute during 5 years. He had to establish clinical departments, to originate a conception of the Institute development. Being a physician, a front-line soldier, a holder of an Order and 5 battle decorations S.G. Ptitsyn in consecutive order and persistently battled for BSMI interests in the Ministry of Public Health. By 1960 9 professors and 24 assistant professors worked at BSMI. Many of them were known in the Soviet Union.

Professor Abram Iosifovich Labbok – a representative of the Kazan school of topographers-anatomists, a scientist known for his investigations in the USSR had international publications.

Professor Boris L’vovich Bronshtein is a representative of the Leningrad school of oncologists, the first Head of the Department of General Surgery. He is a brilliant surgeon, the author of the first in the USSR monograph “Cancer of the large intestine”. He became an organizer of the scientific surgical society of the Amur region.

Professor Mikhail Veniaminovich Mogilev came to Blagoveshchensk from Leningrad. He is an organizer of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the founder of the scientific clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology service of the Amur region. Professor Dina Aronovna Pal’chik – a graduate of the Ashkhabad medical Institute worked with M.V. Mogilev. Later she headed this department.

Professor German Jakovlevich Liberzon is a brilliant diagnostician, the founder of the Department of the Nervous Diseases.

Professor Zinaida Andreevna Ushakova – the first clinical resident of Professor Liberzon was at the head of the Department of the Nervous Diseases till 2000.

Professor Evgeniy Richardovich Tsytritskiy is considered to be a brilliant organizer, the Head of the Department of the Faculty Surgery. His disciples – Professor Veniamin Ivanovich Tochilin; Assistant Professor, pro-rector in the educational work Vasiliy Efimovich Prjadko headed the BSMI departments later.

Professor German Jakovlevich Iosset – the Head of the Department of the Hospital Surgery came from Leningrad. In a short period he was able to organize a collective of like-minded persons, to form specialized courses and departments: the Field Surgery (Assistant Professor Nikolai Ushakov), Anesthesiology (Assistant Professor Oleg Maslov), the Pediatric Surgery (Assistant Professor Dmitriy Bolgov), Otorhinolaryngology (Professor Ivan Ostrovskiy), Ophthalmology (Professor Sergey Basinskiy).

At the beginning of the 1960s an Assistant Professor Magomet Kertibievich Nadgeriev became a rector of BSMI. Being a front-line soldier, a holder of an Order, a delicate psychologist and a far-seeing strategist he made a lot of efforts to improve material resources of the Institute, to strengthen a personnel potential enlisting new instructors, opening scientific research clinical centres.

Professor Jaroslav Petrovich Kulik – a young cardiosurgeon from Smolensk established a specialized cardiosurgical service, began to perform operations of a surgical correction of congenital and acquired heart diseases.

Professor Iraida Vasil’evna Landysheva (wife) and Professor Juriy Sergeevich Landyshev (husband) are graduates of the Tomsk medical Institute. They established their own scientific schools of cardiologists and pulmonologists and scientific directions in BSMI.

Professor Vladimir Jakovlevich Protasov is the father of his own scientific and pedagogical school of anatomists. Vladimir Jakovlevich gave BSMI his private scientific library.

The Head of the Department of Pathological Physiology, Professor Valentina Nikolaevna Obukhova, Professor Valeriy Leonidovich Skuratov, Professor Pavel Tikhonovich Belozierov are considered to be leading figures who did their best to strengthen clinical and theoretical bases of BSMI.

A front-line soldier, an inhabitant of the Far East, an organizer of Public Health, the Head of the Department of the Faculty of Therapy, Professor Peter Yakovlevich Grigor’ev became the next rector of BSMI. The Institute developed fast. 15 theses for a Doctor’s degree and 78 Candidate dissertations were successfully defended by 1971. Scientific branches, the developing scientific schools, the opening scientific research centres – cardiosurgical (Professor Ja. P. Kulik, gastroenterological (Professor P.Ya. Grigor’ev), proctologic (Professor O.P. Amelina); cardiac and pulmonologic branches with diagnostics, therapeutic rehabilitation and pertaining to the prophylaxy services (Professor I.V. Landysheva, Professor Yu.S. Landyshev); organization of a new and important for all profiles of medicine course of Oncology in BSMI (Professor A.H. Ismailov, his successor Professor V.P. Gordienko) furthered a progressive development of the Institute.

Professor Mikhail Timofeevich Lutsenko – a graduate of the Stavropol medical Institute, a public figure, who came to Blagoveshchensk after completing a post-graduate course, traveled a long and glorious road from an assistant to a rector of BSMI. He headed the Department of Histology after an Assistant Professor Tamara Jakovlevna Stoliar, was the founder of a new branch – “Histophysiologic examinations of organs and systems in the conditions of cholesterinemia”. In the 1960-1970s in the USSR and abroad this branch was considered to be a perspective and leading branch. Being a professor in the scientific work he founded a Central Scientific Research Laboratory (CSRL) which united specialists of different departments for a complex scientific and practical work. Baikal and Amur main line building became a great stimulus for realization of scientific research potential of BSMI.

The main task of the Institute is the educational process. It is organized by the office of the head of studies, the deans’ offices of courses and by the dean’s office of BSMI. In different periods they were headed by A.E. Borodin, M.A. Samoteikin, V.J. Protasov, I.L. Safronova, V.A. Dorovskikh, G.P. Shor, S.S. Seliverstov, A.N. Afon’kin, V.P. Gordienko, A. V. Sergienko, V.P. Skurikhina.

Since 1986 till 2011 the Institute was headed by an inhabitant of the Far East, a graduate of BSMI, Professor Vladimir Anatolievich Dorovskikh. In the 1980s methodic teaching systems were being formed and improved particularly and intensively in theoretical and clinical department collectives. Pedagogics of higher school was applied actively for the system of higher medical education. Collectives of the leading medical institutes of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Novosibirsk participated in this work. The instructors of BSMI specialized regularly in these Institutes. About 500 young specialists graduated from the Institute every year. They worked in different regions and parts of the USSR and the Institute had no reclamations: the quality of doctor’s training corresponded to high union standards.

Speaking about the Amur SMA, it is necessary to remember a great role of “solid” and “small” departments and courses: each of them has its own interesting past, the present and the future. Real professionals who were very responsible for their pedagogical, clinical and scientific work were at the head of each subdivision. They are V.A. Figurnov, N.I. Voronin, A.A. Rodionov, S. A. Musina, S.N. Basinskiy, E.I. Khomenko, L.G. Monakov, G.V. Skolubovich (professors); N.J. Rozenfel’d, A.A. Stukalov, O.A.Mironova, S.I. Nazarkina (assistant professors) and many others.

Dorovskikh Vladimir Anatolievich, Figurnov Valentin Alexandrovich, Al’bina Gennad’evna Korol’kova, Kozyrina Morzija Gazizovna, Etmanova Lyubov’ Jakovlevna and others are the veterans of the Amur SMA with a 50 year length of service. At present they continue to work at the Academy.

A leader of such important subdivision as a library is Zherevchuk Vera Vasilievna.

In 1996 BSMI was reorganized the Amur State Medical Academy (the Amur SMA) and admitted to the Association of medical schools of Europe. It allowed unify doctor’s training with All-European standards. In May, 2011 a general meeting of a work collective of the Amur SMA took place. At the meeting Doc. Med. Sc., Professor Tatiana Vladimirovna Zabolotskikh was elected a rector of the Academy.

In June, 2012 the Amur State Medical Academy celebrated its 60th anniversary. The Academy travelled a long and a glorious road. Now it is one of the oldest higher medical schools of the Russian Federation. The Academy keeps traditions of the academic education and possesses highly skilled specialists.