The most famous research medical institution in Ukraine is the Shalimov Institute, which has been operating in Kiev for more than 35 years.
Founder and teacher
The name of Aleksandr Alekseevich Shalimov is well known to every Ukrainian surgeon. Coming from the Lipetsk region, Shalimov was not only a full member of many international surgical associations, but also a Hero of Ukraine, who founded the national surgical school.
This is a person to whom the definition of "made himself" is fully suitable. Alexander Alekseevich was one of 14 children in a large peasant family. After accelerated training at the Kuban Medical Institute, the young surgeon went through the Patriotic War in the surgical hospital of the Chita region. He was not taken to the front for health reasons. Many people already owed him healing.
Over his life, this person has performed more than 40 thousand surgical interventions, developed the technology of many surgical treatment methods. The first heart transplant operation in Ukraine was carried out under his leadership. He was recognized as the Man of the Planet in 1998. An outstanding surgeon died in 2006. Even during the life of the surgeon, a medical institution that was given for many years was simply called the Shalimov Institute.
Friends and Achievements
Shalimov’s best friend and rival in tacit professional competition was Nikolai Amosov, one of the best thoracic surgeons in the world. Introducing new methods of surgical treatment, Shalimov was the first in the then USSR to transplant a pancreas to a patient with diabetes. He developed and implemented operational methods for the treatment of cancer, including the removal of part of the liver.
Today, the Shalimov Institute continues the work of its founder, successfully healing various surgical pathologies. The institute does not have a specific surgical specialization, they provide effective assistance to people with various diseases.
What is being treated?
Today, the Shalimov Institute is the leading medical institution in Ukraine with a surgical profile, in which the following departments successfully function:
- gastrointestinal tract surgery;
- laparoscopic surgery;
- transplantation and liver surgery;
- surgery of the great vessels;
- microvascular, plastic and reconstructive surgery;
- kidney transplantation;
- transplantation and heart surgery;
- endovascular surgery and angiography;
- anesthesiology and intensive care;
- radiation and functional diagnostics.
In its composition, the National Institute. Shalimova has clinical laboratories that provide a full range of diagnostic procedures. There are laboratories of biochemistry and bacteriology, endoscopy, pathomorphology and cytology, ultrasound diagnostics.
Experimental surgery
The department of experimental surgery is the most interesting at the institute. Hence, new technologies and surgical techniques that later save many lives are “born”. The department is headed by Honored Worker of Science and Technology of Ukraine, Doctor of Medical Sciences Yuriy Aleksandrovich Furmanov.
As you know, new methods today can only arise at the intersection of sciences, which is why the Shalimov Institute is famous. Reviews from grateful patients indicate that they are here to help in the most complicated and non-standard cases.
It was here that methods of seamless connection of living tissues, their electric welding, plasma welding to stop bleeding were developed and tested.
Here they received a “ticket to life” absorbable suture materials, atraumatic threads for microsurgery, dressings, fasteners for the treatment of purulent wounds, wound hemostatic agents, synthetic medical adhesives, disposable surgical clothing.
Equal to Europe
From Europe, doctors at the Shalimov Institute borrowed an integrated approach to the problem of transplantology. Here, for the first time in Ukraine, an electronic database of patients of the transplantology department was created. The very concept of "electronic card" appeared. Upon admission to each patient, a file is entered where all the data about his examination and treatment is entered. Everyone who has ever tried to find archival information about a particular surgical intervention appreciates the instant availability of information.
In addition, an organ transplant operation is carried out by a team consisting of not only surgeons, nurses and anesthetists, but also including technical specialists. This approach allows you to cope with the medical tasks of any complexity.
Almost all doctors of the Shalimov Institute have a degree, and this greatly increases the general level of professionalism of the clinic staff. If colleagues have the opportunity to consult with the authors of the methods on complex medical and diagnostic issues, then the corresponding result is quite predictable.
Advisory Clinic
Institute of Surgery and Transplantology Shalimova takes her patients to the consultative clinic on working days from 8 to 16 hours. The speed of work of physicians meets the most stringent European criteria: all diagnostic procedures are performed on the day of treatment.
Naturally, the patient should be prepared for diagnostic procedures. To inform patients, there is a registry and free hotline phones by which specialists will answer all questions.
Candidates and doctors of medical sciences advise patients, so that the patient receives a verdict on his state of health first-hand.
When do doctors recommend using stem cells?
Officially in Ukraine, it is recommended to use stem cells for treatment only in three conditions:
- pancreatic necrosis or death of the pancreas;
- critical limb ischemia;
- injuries and burns.
The Shalimov Institute of Transplantology is one of 5 medical institutions that have official permission from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to use stem cells for medicinal purposes. Such permission was obtained by the institute in 2013, and since then the method has been successfully used.
Caution - Stem Cells!
Stem cells require extremely careful and professionally justified use. The fact is that undifferentiated stem cells are able to "grow" to cells of various organs with a strictly defined function, such as hepatocytes - liver cells, cardiocytes - heart cells or hematopoietic - producing blood cell cells.
Stem cell transplantation performed poorly and unqualifiedly can lead to cancerous degeneration - that is why such a transplantation can only be performed by very experienced doctors.
Only a surgeon can cure the pancreas
Many people suffer from abdominal pain and digestive upset caused by chronic pancreatic inflammation or pancreatitis. This is especially evident after the holidays, when people overeat while drinking fatty foods with alcohol. Experienced ambulance doctors always bring such patients to the surgical department, because only surgery can really help.
Kievans in this sense were more fortunate than others - they have the Shalimov Institute, whose address is: st. Heroes of Sevastopol, 30. Exceptional clinical experience has been accumulated in the treatment of pancreatic diseases. There is a whole department of pancreatic surgery and reconstructive surgery of the biliary tract.
This combination is no coincidence. The fact is that the most common cause of pancreatic disease is gallstones, which fall out of the gallbladder and block the tiny duct through which the secretion of the pancreas is removed into the intestines. Due to the fact that the duct is blocked, the pancreas is inflated with a secret, and at one far from perfect moment the capsule of the gland bursts. This leads to the melting of the gland tissue with its subsequent death. Without surgery in this case, a person can die.
Microvascular, plastic and reconstructive surgery
This is not quite what the concept of "plastic surgeon" is associated with the layman. Here, they are engaged not only in the creation of glamorous beauties, but also in the replacement of lost anatomical structures: muscles, joints, hands and feet.
Of great social importance is the direction of microsurgery of the hand, in which the implantation of the extremities is performed. Defects or missing brushes can be corrected in this compartment.
Genital injuries, the consequences of surgical removal of tumors, the effects of burns, defects in the development of limbs, auricles, vascular malformations of the head and neck, and lymphovenous insufficiency can be drastically cured. A flap of the patient’s own living tissue on the vascular pedicle in the hands of a skilled surgeon is able to perform real miracles.
High technology is forever registered here. The only thing doctors complain about is the lack of medical equipment, but surgeons cannot resolve this issue on their own.
Department of Endovascular Surgery and Angiography
The Shalimov Institute of Surgery saves the lives of people suffering from diseases of the heart and blood vessels, as well as those to whom various organs are transplanted.
Living tissue dies due to the fact that they no longer receive blood that carries oxygen. This occurs most often due to severe spasm of the vessels, when there is practically no lumen, the blood cannot “squeeze”. An obstruction can also be a blood clot, an atherosclerotic plaque or trauma, the destruction of the vessel itself.
In this case, a stent or a thin metal frame can be saved that does not allow the walls of the vessel to shrink. A thrombus or plaque located at the site of narrowing is pre-crushed with a balloon, and the resulting lumen is fixed with a stent. The metal structure doesn’t matter whether the person is nervous or not, is experiencing physical overload or adrenaline rush - the stent firmly holds the lumen, and the blood supply is normal.
So people with chronic diseases remain for whom stenting is the only chance.
In the Institute, unique operations are performed such as transplantation of a part of the liver from a living relative, removal of esophageal tumors, surgical treatment of obesity, and much more.
Reviews of patients about doctors
They were divided almost equally: the pros and cons. After the death of Academician Shalimov, the Institute is going through difficult times. The surgeons' qualifications did not get any worse, administration changed. The team of unique specialists is managed by a person who does not have not only outstanding scientific achievements, but also a moral core. The situation at the institute was so heated that the scandal went beyond the walls of a respected institution. The situation is aggravated by the fact that now the institute does not accept complex patients “in order not to spoil the statistics” with a fatal outcome.
One can only hope that the institute will someday be led by an enthusiast in their field, which will allow the clinic to regain its former glory.