In 1959
Leonid Rogozov graduated from the Institute and was immediately accepted
to the surgery clinical residency. However, his studies at the
residency were broken off for some time due to Leonid�s trip to
Antarctica in September, 1960 as a doctor of the 6th Soviet Antarctic
expedition to Novolazarevskaya station.
During this expedition there happened an event that made a 27-year
old surgeon world-famous.
In the 4th month of the
wintering, in April, 29th, 1961, Leonid showed disturbing symptoms:
weakness, nausea, fever and pain in a right iliac region. The following
day his temperature got even higher. Being the only doctor in the
expedition consisting of 13 people, Leonid diagnosed himself: acute
appendicitis. There were no planes at any of the nearest stations,
besides, adverse weather conditions would not allow to fly to
Novolazarevskaya anyway. In order to save the sick member of a polar
expedition there was needed an urgent operation on site. And the only
way out was to operate on himself.
What happened next? Did he operate himself successfully?
“When you stay alone at the Polar Arctic
station and you have a trouble with your health you can visit the
doctor, but what if you are the doctor yourself and it takes place 1960
with no sat calls?
At night, on the 30th of
April, 1961, the surgeon was being helped by a mechanical
engineer and a meteorologist who were giving him the medical instruments
and holding a small mirror at his belly. Lying half bent on the left
side, the doctor made a local anesthesia with novocaine solution and
made a 12cm incision in the right iliac region with a scalpel. Either
watching in the mirror or by touch he removed an inflamed appendix and
injected antibiotic in the abdominal cavity. In 30 or 40 minutes from
the beginning of the operation there developed a faint and
giddiness and the surgeon had to make pauses for some rest.
Nevertheless, by midnight the operation lasting 1 hour and 45 minutes
was over. In five days the temperature normalized, in two days more –
the stitches were taken out.
In the St. Petersburg Museum of the
Arctic and the Antarctic there is an exposure of surgical instruments
that Leonid Rogozov applied for this uneasy operation.
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