8 August 1927 year
Svyatoslav Fedorov, an ophthalmologist, microsurgeon, and inventor, was born in Proskurov (Khmelnytskyi).
A person does not want to be a slave - neither a slave to another person, nor a slave to things, including glasses
The son of an "enemy of the people." His father was accused of military conspiracy in 1938 and exiled to Kolyma for 15 years. In 1944, Slava entered the Air Force's special school. But he didn't become a pilot. One day, while rushing to a student holiday, he accidentally stepped onto a tram and lost a foot.
In 1952 he graduated from the Rostov Medical Institute. In 1958 he left for Cheboksary — to manage a branch of the State Institute of Eye Diseases. He became fascinated with the implantation of artificial lenses. At his request, a pioneering mechanic made the first plastic lenses in the USSR. Semyon Milman. They were implanted into rabbits.
I love operating. You feel in control of the process… And it's as if you're constantly walking on a razor's edge, 100 angstroms thick… I'm an impulsive person by nature, and therefore I couldn't be, say, a therapist: I need to quickly see the results of what I've done.
He performed the first successful eye surgery in the USSR in 1960—replacing the lens of a 12-year-old girl with congenital cataracts. Due to a conflict with his superiors, Fedorov's work was declared unscientific, and he was dismissed from his post. He was reinstated after journalists intervened.
There may be a hundred ways to take a person's life, but for them to ruin a life, you have to forgive the meanness once. Give in once. Retreat once. Keep silent once.
In 1973, he performed the world's first operation to treat early-stage glaucoma. In 1979, he became head of the Research Institute of Eye Microsurgery. He introduced the "ophthalmological conveyor belt" into practice: each doctor, moving from patient to patient, performed their part of the operation.
The future of healthcare is the attending physician. A physician armed with modern equipment: precision electronics, optics, and laser technology. Today's physician must be armed no worse than a modern soldier.
From 1989 to 1991, he was a member of parliament. In 1996, he ran for president. He died in a plane crash in the summer of 2000.
