Alexander Konovalov

Many of reaching here - patients or relatives of patients, parents or children of patients, or accompanying friends - it was said: "This will only Konovalov". Therefore, waiting for him, as God's way. And often do not suspect that this skinny dark-haired, fast-glimpsed in the corridor, the doctor with a strong chin and look slightly askance through simple points, without any of the suite and escort, and there is this God. Director of the Institute Academician Konovalov. God neurosurgical Promised Land.
Born in 1933. Moscow.
1957 - graduate of the 1-st Moscow Medical Institute. IM. Sechenov.
1957 - MD Institute of Neurosurgery. NN Burdenko.
. 1964 - Candidate of Medical Sciences.
. 1970 - Doctor of Medical Sciences.
. 1975 - Director of the Institute of Neurosurgery.
. 1982 - academician of RAMS.
. 1995-1999 - operated on 1,500 patients.
. Leading specialist of Russia in the field of neurosurgery
. Winner of USSR State Prize, State Prize of Russia, the award named after academician NN. Burdenko
We go to the operation. The main reason is that the conversation in the classical sense does not get. Just for the routine working day employs the Director. Well, like this: sit down and razgovarivatN equivalent downtime rapidly current conveyor. Instead, use a generous permission to accompany him in the working process - for operations, administrative planning meeting, a morning conference, rounds, consultations, and simply go along to ask what it is not clear. This is the most reliable. Ask for Konovalova very easy, it feels even a boy from the corridor turns to the survey. Catches of all those present is his robe: "Uncle, where are tualetN" Uncle shows: there, in the basement, and turn left. And then he remembers: tomorrow it will begin to break down for repairs. It is necessary to order a temporary trailer, and for him to break through the door through the window of the hall into the courtyard. And so on and so forth.

- We have this idiotic system. Nobody will not solve any problem, if not ask the first person. All to supply a bag of cement, all equipment, architecture, allotment of land ... The West does not understand and will never understand. Surgeon-Academician - Caterer ....

Surgeon, before dropping a heavy door operbloka repya administrative hassle. And here is a bunch of timid relatives pending the outcome. A moment of stopping. "Why are you here stoiteN here can not stand ..." However, in a voice that is clear: no one does not chase them away. Behind the door - eight operating rooms, which lacks even when working in two or three shifts. By the way, . why all the building for many years drifting, . bursting at the seams, . burst sewerage and heating, . and operblok stands firmly krepkimN And the light is a peculiar, . dustless, . clean and yarkiyN Because in this prehistoric hostel for poor children of the nobility was the Church,
. God, therefore, recognized neurosurgery. A war housed in the hospital for the wounded in the head and spine. Which for a long time writing letters in cranio-repair shop on the 5-th Tverskaya behalf of Comrade Budyonny ". So they understood the general Burdenko
I thought: as academician preparing operatsiiN celebration, meditation, concentration, with music by Bach ... Dudki. Sheer Storage: bales of wool on the cabinets, boxes of linen, narrow cabinets craft cabins. Quickly, in solitude, as soldiers on alert: all of himself to melting, trained lean athletic figure itself - blue overalls, worn-worn shoes. Ascetic, concise, focused. I get a gown with shoe covers, mask, hat, go wash your hands. The rules: soap, then in a bowl with a disinfecting solution. They say that the surgeon can safely go on the offense, fingerprints will be left.

In the spacious tiled room at the table - boy's body, wrapped in brown sheets. In the window - X-rays, peak heart rate monitor in the control of narcotic. Pipes, pumps, levers, the wheel. Konovalov in brown robe, the same nahlobuchennoy cap, rubber galoshes stuck in a brightly lit lined with gauze fossa in the skull in an uncomfortable position. Building a little thrown back, arms raised and stretched hard, very severely for their own spine. In the eyes - binocular microscope, the one about which the periphery is legendary. With an ink inscription on the white plaster tape: "Lamp Professor. AN Konovalov,. The child there, inside, very bad, severe swelling. Young colleagues, assistants, are determined: "Look here, now temporal joint emerges ..." Director seems cautious and circumspect: "It is impossible for God's sake, do the operation for the operation ...- and heavy sigh. - Oh, Christmas tree-stick ... If something can be done - then radiotherapy. "

Then, coming out, echoes of a young colleague: "He is like a narrow specialist inclined to radical action ... But the anatomy knows better.

And after the second or a third of today's operation, from which some kind may be supertrudoemkoy and many hours, the impression is, if Konovalov left all alone in the empty night package. Dressed in the twilight of the headmaster's study, dictating to tape every evening "Our Father" day we live - the protocol operation. No more pages - to the end of the year they formed in a folder on a thick novel.

He suddenly said: "Actually it is not even a specialty, and way of life, philosophy, Supertask. The incredible responsibility to not only save human lives, but did not deprive him of his human appearance, to maintain a decent life, the right of conscience ... "
He is the fourth director of the Institute. His appointment was a sensation - only 43 years old, not because of academic or ministerial offices, and of its own, operating doctors. Konovalov - from the finest medical and intellectual family. My mother - an excellent surgeon, then infectious diseases. Father - a big neurologist, director of the Institute of Neurology. Could well work in his father's institute - a brilliant, with honors, family tradition ... But they in the Soviet system, for some reason, was forbidden. In a related institution, he escaped from the shadow of nepotism. And the old doctors, nurses and even those times remember one thing: the most careful and tolerant of young surgeons. Examinations of patients - with exhausting slowly and thoroughness, inherited from father. The study of images, laboratory test tubes with a biopsy - in three shifts. Operation - let twelve o'clock, but before the complete cleaning of the cavity, to that not everyone has the patience of an experienced surgeon. "Fanatic" and "ascetic" - those unflattering expressions, which were on his heels. And at the same time - the most sensitive responsiveness.

Funny stories told an acquaintance, too, was lying there after the head surgery. "I was lying, his head swells, smoking, hunting. I looked at seven in the morning, some guy in the ward are darting about, bespectacled, thin, dark horses. I think the nurse carries out the procedure. Whispering: guy, run, bring me a cigarette, simply unbearable. He shrugged his shoulders, jumped for a moment, back, puts a cigarette. But, said the window, and so not spotted attending. I'm just a soul departed. And after an hour the whole team was: bypass. And the "guy" was Konovalov.

He found, as he expressed, even quite barbaric methods of research and operations, prevailed even when luminaries director of the Burdenko, Egorova, Arutyunova. What to do - this was the technique. What to do with think tanks - even to think they were afraid, as long as the patient did not die on the table. Many of the tumors were generally inaccessible and inoperable, had only to "uncork" the skull of poor compression and alleviate the suffering of his last. I find comfort in the fact that in the last century, when the words "brain surgery" did not know, people just glohli, blinded and ended with paralysis, yielding a sad fate.

. Breakthrough in diagnosis using the first X-ray, and then magnetic resonance imaging has made head "transparent" for the detection of tumor
. And thus, increased the accuracy of the approach. In the 80's, when about a diagnosis is only dreamed of, the institute did a year and a half thousand transactions with mortality 12 per. In the 90's, when these methods came into use, operation was already two and a half thousand to five-percent mortality. Statistics, of course, no consolation in each individual grief. But without this struggle hundred percent would have been doomed.

We are again in operbloke, but now the 12 th floor of the new building, where concentrated 13 operational. Going up here, and note the palatial marble foyer, and engineering equipment, complex network of communications - one of the gas piping fifteen kilometers. Cut down in all Moscow light - the surgeon did not notice: automatic program launch emergency gang in seconds. All jobs are linked by a network of local computer complex with access to the Internet and medical space bridges. Duty Remote control in resuscitation and intensive care - what do the Mission Control Center.

At the director's rounds and consultation is a prelude operations. And again the feeling that the attending physicians and director of the hiring the executive director of both the laborer, on which hung the most complex work. Again, the painful decision and quiet, not intended for the ears of patients and relatives: "The horror, the horror ... Oh, nightmare ... Trouble ... It is necessary to operate or netN I'm afraid ... "Sometimes a sharp:" You're pushing me to do what I do not know! "But the decision still accepted, and the patient on the table. Although about him have just told me again, . that is one of the best in the world "cleaners", . incredible virtuosity and daring in the invasion of highly sensitive areas, . I hear a purely intellectualist reflection: "Neither facial, . not auditory nerve can not really distinguish ..,
. Completely destroyed. No anatomically preserved ... Yes, here you have to claim the feet, all decaying ... "Under this comment is subtle processes of audit of nerves:" There is a nerve ... No. No nerve ... There is ... "replicas can be bezuteshnmi:" From barrel tragedy. I can not catch ... "And only a day or two rounds at nine, intensive care, floor see more pink result of mutual torment. When an elderly patient on a very confidential request of Alexander Nikolayevich still in semi raises his left, then right arm, leg twitching, blinking, and opens his eyes ... Home incredibly difficult, but the real recovery. Yesterday's year-old girl still in a daze, plastered patch and dotted with pipes. "His blood in her liter, and lost in the operation, two liters, a lot of transfused". But a number of other, slightly older, already lined with colorful soft toys. Hriplenkim, as it turned out, only returning to her voice happily reported: "And soon I'll go to the department ..." And pray that this tumor was not "zlokachkoy". What is called high-tech, precise and intensive treatment, allows the same 300 beds, carried over from the old building, at 2-3 times speed up treatment for each patient and, therefore, "permeability" clinics without an increase in beds. Send in the series, local hospitals, even more new and modern methods of healing from the evil rock, the origin of which, alas, still nedoraskryto. There are calculations and the old, pensions case. At the diagnostic center to create a model of rehabilitation. Work out a full cycle of returning people to full life. After all, to keep it after traumatic brain or spinal injuries - half the battle. Helpless, immobilized with disabilities - grief for the family and the cost to the state. And those losses today - do not consider. Besides, among the "spine" of 70-80 percent - men with an average age of 28 years, the color of the nation. So in this trade to begin and begin again.
In parting, one philosophical question:
- We are known to use their "home computer" is not at full capacity. Whether 5, or 20 percent, estimate п?я?я?п?пЎ. Hence, perhaps, and a lot of stupid decisions. It is hoped that brain surgery in the future will fully include the natural uniqueness mashinuN
Konovalov sobering:
- I think this problem is solved thousands of years ago without any cranial and even genetic interventions. In every century, you will find your Leo Tolstoy, a Newton, his Archimedes. And Solzhenitsyn Solzhenitsyn was under any circumstances of life ... So no one interferes, nobody. Here every creator himself.