Alexander Bakulev

Who was Alexander Bakulev?

Aleksandr Nikolayevich Bakulev was a Soviet surgeon, one of the founders of cardiovascular surgery in the USSR.

Born in Nevenikovskaya into a peasant family which belonged to the old Vyatka clan of Bakulevs, Bakulev attended the medical faculty of Saratov University after graduating from high school. During the First World War he served as a regimental medical officer on the Western Front. In 1938 Bakulev conducted a successful lobectomy in a case of chronic lung abscess. In 1939 he earned the academic degree of Professor and the same year conducted a successful lobectomy in a case of pulmonary actinomycosis. In 1943 Bakulev became head of the surgery department of the 2nd Pirogov Moscow Institute of Medicine. On the Eastern Front of World War II, Bakulev was the chief surgeon of Moscow evacuation hospitals. In 1948 he pioneered the surgical treatment of congenital heart disorders in the Soviet Union. He was the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1953 to 1960.

In 1955 he suggested the foundation of the Thoracic Surgery Institute and then became its first head. In 1958 Bakulev was elected as a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.