First publication of excerpts from the great scientist’s diary

M. M. Amosov not only founded the but also raised Ukrainian thoracic surgery and anesthesiology to a qualitatively new level; he was the first to perform open-heart operations in this country. The dramatic pitch of all this permeates his diaries, which our newspaper begins to publish today. The diaries were courteously furnished to The Day by Mykola Amosov’s daughter Kateryna Amosova, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine and head of the Hospital Therapy Department at the Bohomolets National Medical University. We asked her to “fill our readers in” on the situation of those days.

“After coming from Briansk, father continued to deal with thoracic surgery and, for the first time in Ukraine, began to perform operations on the heart. It was a small clinic, a two-story building as part of the Institute of Tuberculosis and Thorax. He had a team of like-minded people. This clinic ranked first in the USSR, as far as the number and complexity of operations is concerned, which raised the question of establishing an institute. A new block was built. Father turned 69 twenty years ago. His assistants were clearly aware that he was quite a figure and that money would be allotted for buying the equipment, medicines, and other indispensable things just in deference to the name of Amosov. Father was perhaps the first and the only one of all the medical luminaries I have known personally in 47 years who did not care about the title of institute director. This is the gospel truth. There were and are no others like him. He opted for this to champion the cause. His diaries feature two subject lines. The first is surgery or, to be more exact, surgery-centered emotions. Only doctors can fully understand what a nightmare this is. When you read, your hair stands on end over the way it was and the way he went through it. He wrote not only about deaths caused by some objective factors, such as, say, substandard Soviet-made heart prostheses. He also wrote about his own mistakes. He must be the only surgeon, after Pirogov, who honestly described his errors. Moreover, he analyzed those mistakes and wrote in no uncertain terms, “I made the wrong decision.” The next patients will be saved, but this patient has died!

“ This is, in general, how the institute began. It must be one of the few cases when the director of a still-to-be-opened institute did not have to beg for money, trying to prove that this was really needed by the country, the people, the Party, and the government. This is where, most probability, the institute’s uniqueness lay. The diaries describe mistakes due to surgical errors and force-majeure circumstances as well as some successes. He was more predisposed to write about failures rather than successes.

“The diary’s second line is father’s philosophical outlooks. When I read it, I rethought some concepts. He really wanted to create a new model of society and improve what existed. He believed in science, he was eager to know to what extent a human being was biological or educable. He believed he could do more good with his philosophical, sociological, and cybernetic work than with surgery.

“A few words about father as a director. He would conduct secret- ballot votes on the professional and human qualities of himself and his closest assistants. I had heard about this when I was young, but I saw it with my own eyes when I was bringing order to father’s archives. A part of this documentation is still present. Maybe I will burn it without reading it... In fact, I have never seen a clinic director who would dare poll his subordinates by secret ballot. Pluses, minuses, professional and personal qualities... A list of ward superintendents and leading specialists with Amosov at their head... This was done for several years at a time. If something was not clear, he would show his assistants the voting results and say, “Keep this in mind, remember about this in your work.” I know no other director who did not fear such feedback.

Yet, he indeed lived like this. Moreover, I am pleased that father lived a happy life, for he was absolutely sincerely convinced that all loved and respected him. He would cut short comments that somebody is stuck up and so on. I remember him saying, when I, a schoolgirl, once criticized my classmates, “How come you say bad things about people? Why don’t you say good things about them?” And I felt ashamed. Another detail: being the Institute director, he lived in a country retreat 50 kilometers from Kyiv. Because he thought it immoral to use a staff car, he would walk in a quick step for 20 minutes to catch a suburban train, ride on the train for 45 minutes or so, and only then get in the institute car at Sviatoshyno.

“I hope to publish Mykola Amosov’s collected works, among them not only the diaries but also some fiction, including the second part of Notes from the Future written in 1970 and so far published only in English in the US through APN news agency channels. This manuscript was found in father’s archives, restored, modified and will be published soon. He wrote in 1970 what our country would look like in 2002 should communism prevail. Some things look naive now, but I think it is interesting. As I concluded from father’s diaries, he viewed both parts of Notes from the Future as conductors of his philosophical ideas. In other words, he was fully aware that brochures on public outlook and society, first, would not be printed and, secondly, would not be read. This is why he reflected in his diaries on how to couch some ideas in the form of fiction to make it interesting to read. He also wanted other reflections to be set in a fine type, so that a reader not interested in it could skip it without detriment to the main plot and ideas. It should be noted that father knew very well he was not a Tolstoy: “Too little talent maybe.” This is a wonderful admission against the backdrop of our confidence that we have talent up to our ears, but nobody appreciates us.”

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We are grateful to Dr. Kateryna Amosova for giving us — newspaper employees and readers — an opportunity to share the ideas, worries, and reflections of a great man. We hope that Mykola Amosov’s ideas will be embraced by our society.