Mykola Amosov - Know Your Own

Heart surgeon, scientist and writer, one of the pioneers of cardiac surgery. He founded an institute in Kyiv where thousands of lives were saved, and developed his own system for staying healthy.

Key accomplishments

First in Ukraine to perform heart surgery with a heart-lung machine (1958)

First mitral valve replacement in the USSR (1963); created the world’s first anti-thrombotic heart valve prostheses (1965)

Founded the Kyiv institute of cardiovascular surgery that now bears his name

Books Thoughts and the Heart and Reflections on Health; the “limits and loads” health system

Who he was

Mykola Amosov was born in the village of Olkhove in the Vologda region (Russia). During the Second World War he was the lead surgeon of a field hospital and operated on thousands of wounded. From 1952 he lived and worked in Kyiv, where he developed heart and lung surgery.

His story

Amosov was among the pioneers of cardiac surgery. His team used a heart-lung machine and developed new surgical techniques and heart valve prostheses. He founded a scientific center for heart surgery in Kyiv, which today is the M. M. Amosov National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery. Tens of thousands of operations have been performed there.

Amosov wrote books for a general readership about medicine, the human being and health. He developed a system of physical exercise and dietary limits, which he tested on himself into old age.