Professor Sergey Dmitrievich Ternovsky (1896–1960) (on the 130th anniversary of his birth)

An outstanding pediatric surgeon and traumatologist-orthopedist, scientist, teacher and organizer of pediatric medical services, one of the founders of pediatric surgery in the USSR, the creator of a large national school of pediatric surgeons, traumatologists and orthopedists, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (1956), Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1956), Professor (1942) Sergei Dmitrievich Ternovsky was born on September 8 (September 20, new style), 1896, in the village of Zyuzdino, Glazovsky Uyezd, Vyatka Governorate, into a peasant family. After graduating from the Moscow Gymnasium with a silver medal, Sergei Ternovsky entered the Faculty of Medicine of Moscow State University. Immediately after graduation, the young doctor was drafted into the Red Army and served in various medical positions in the 10th Army of the Southern Front. After demobilization in February 1924, S. D. Ternovsky began his residency at the Hospital Surgery Clinic of Moscow University, headed by Professor A.V. Martynov. In 1927, Sergei Dmitrievich was elected to the position of resident in the surgical department of the City ModelChildren’s Clinical Hospital № 1. From 1940 to 1946, he served as head of the surgical department of the Central Pediatric Research Institute of the Ministry of Health of the RSFSR. In 1943, the Department of Pediatric Surgery and Orthopedics was organized at the 2nd Moscow State Medical Institute and on the basis of the surgical department of City Children’s Clinical Hospital № 1. Professor S. D. Ternovsky was elected head of the department. He headed this department until the end of his life. In 1952, on his initiative and with his direct participation, the Pediatric Surgery Section was established at the Surgical Society of Moscow and the Moscow Region, and Sergei Dmitrievich served as its permanent chairman. During the 17 years that S. D. Ternovsky headed the Pediatric Surgery and Orthopedics Department at the 2nd Moscow Medical Institute named after N. I. Pirogov, 21 candidate’s and 3 doctoral dissertations were defended. Department staff published approximately 450 scientific papers. The department and clinic truly became the educational and methodological center of pediatric surgery and orthopedics in the Soviet Union. Hundreds of pediatric surgeons and orthopedists from all corners of the country attended advanced training courses. Many of Sergei Dmitrievich’s students became heads of major trauma and orthopedic institutions (the N. N. Priorov Central Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics, the Central Institute of Prosthetics and Prosthetics, the G. I. Turner Children’s Orthopedic Institute, and the Russian Institute of Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery), as well as traumatology and orthopedics departments at medical institutes. S. D. Ternovsky died on November 19, 1960, and was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.