Professor Igor M. Samokhvalov: scientist, teacher, worker and military field surgeon (on the 70th anniversary of his birth)

July 5, 2024 marked the 70th anniversary of the famous military surgeon, Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation, former Chief Surgeon of the Ministry of Defense and head of the Department of Military Field Surgery of the Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov, corresponding member and honorary Doctor of the Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, retired Colonel of the medical service Igor M. Samokhvalov. After graduating from the Academy, I.M. Samokhvalov served in the Airborne Troops as a military doctor, then as a surgeon of a separate medical battalion. In 1981, I.M. Samokhvalov entered the adjunct course at the Department of Military Field Surgery and successfully defended his thesis for the degree of Candidate of Medical Sciences on traumatic disease in limb injuries. I.M. Samokhvalov — a participant in combat operations in Afghanistan (1980, 1987–1988) and in the North Caucasus (1994–1995). He provided assistance to victims of the earthquake in Armenia in 1988. The generalization of the experience gained was framed in the form of a doctoral dissertation on combat trauma of blood vessels. In 2007, I.M. Samokhvalov was appointed head of the Department of Military Field Surgery, then from 2010 to 2022 he was elected head of this department. As Chief Surgeon of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in the difficult conditions of the reduction of the Armed Forces, he carried out work to improve the quality of surgical care. Professor I.M. Samokhvalov is one of the country’s leading specialists in military field surgery, polytrauma surgery, and angiotraumatology. He developed the concept of optimizing the provision of surgical care to the wounded and the tactics of “damage control” in a hybrid war, on the basis of which the current guidelines for military field surgery were prepared. He led the creation of a line of modern domestic individual means of providing assistance to the wounded. He proposed the concept of temporary intracavitary hemostasis in abdominal injuries with ongoing intra-abdominal bleeding. Professor I.M. Samokhvalov has established a school of military field surgeons, 11 doctors and 26 candidates of medical sciences have been trained. Since 2022, Igor M. continues to work at his native department as a professor and is (concurrently) a leading researcher at the Department of Combined Injuries of the St. Petersburg Scientific Research Institute of Emergency Medicine named after I.I. Janelidze.