Elena Ivanovna Kropacheva (1926–2013): the fate of the surgeon-professor

Abstract

The  article  is  based  on  a  variety  of  sources,  including  archival  sources,  and  presents  an  academic  biography  of  doctor  of medical  sciences,  Professor  E.I.  Kropacheva  (1926–2013),  one  of  the  first  cardiovascular  surgeons  in  the  Khabarovsk Territory. Her work as a physician and scientist was inextricably linked with the Khabarovsk State Medical Institute. In 1959,at the institute’s department of surgery, she defended her thesis for the degree of candidate of medical sciences on clinical and anatomical inconsistencies in acute appendicitis. Particular attention is paid to the versatile nature of Professor Kropacheva’s scientific work in the field of surgery, one of the pillars of which was surgical treatment for acquired heart defects. In 1973, she became one of the first in the Far East to defend a thesis for the degree of doctor of medical sciences in cardiac surgery. The thesis describes the evaluation of the myocardium’s functional state in patients with rheumatic heart disease in the process of establishing indications for surgery. The article also examines the activities of Professor Kropacheva’s scientific and practical clinical  school,  which  was  created  at  the  Khabarovsk  State  Medical  Institute’s  department  of  hospital  surgery,  and  which she chaired for many years. The school’s leading research areas included emergency abdominal surgery, in particular, the treatment of peritonitis of varying complexity, gastric ulcers, and duodenal ulcers, as well as the immunological aspects of diagnosis  and  treatment  in  surgery.  The  authors  note  that  during  Professor  Kropacheva’s  many  years  of  fruitful  teaching,numerous skilled surgeons and scientists were trained.