Boris Petrovsky

Petrovsky was born in Yessentuki on 27 June 1908. Petrovsky applied for the Medicine Faculty of Moscow University, but he was not accepted due to the restricted quota and was transferred to the Engineering Faculty of the same university. However, through the help of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Vladimir Lenin's widow, who was serving as the deputy education minister, Petrovsky managed to enroll to the Medicine Faculty and received a degree in medicine. In 1933 he became a research investigator at the Moscow Institute for Oncology where he received a PhD completing his thesis on the transfusion of blood and blood substitutes in oncology. His second thesis which was required to pursue an academic career was about his experience as a military surgeon during the wars with Finland and Germany. ==Career==

Petrovsky served in the Red Army as a military surgeon during the wars with Finland in 1939-40 and during World War II with Germany. In 1945 he was appointed deputy director of the Research Institute for Experimental and Clinical Surgery where he extensively studied oesophageal surgery. In 1948 Petrovsky was promoted to the title of professor of general surgery at the Moscow State Medical Institute. In the period between 1949 and 1951 he worked at Budapest University as the chairman of hospital surgery and director of a surgery clinic. Then he was named chief surgeon at the Kremlin Hospital in Moscow. Next he was appointed chairman of surgery at the Moscow Medical Institute and in 1956 he was named the chairman of surgery at the Moscow State Medical Institute. In 1965 Petrovsky carried out the first kidney transplant in the Soviet Union. In September of the same year he was appointed minister of health.{{cite news|title=Heart Surgeon Named Soviet Health Minister|work=The New York Times Petrovsky was also a member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. ==Later years, personal life and death==

Petrovsky married Yekaterina Timofeyeva, a biologist-researcher at a university. Awards on presentaion of the Order of St. Andrew, 10 October 2003 Petrovsky was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Lenin Prize in 1960 and the Hero of Socialist Labour in 1968. • Order of the Red Star (1942) • Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1970) • Order of the October Revolution (1971) • USSR State Prize (1971) • Order of Friendship of Peoples (1993) Work One of the books written by Petrovsky was published in 1949 entitled Surgical Treatment of Vascular Injuries. ==References==