NMIC of Radiology in persons. Nikolai Vasilyevich Polyakov

“The availability of our help is a real breakthrough”

Nikolay Vasilyevich Polyakov – Candidate of Medical Sciences, Head of the Group of Reconstructive Urology of the Lopatkin Research Institute of Urology and Interventional Radiology – Branch of the NMIC Radiology of the Ministry of Health of Russia:

“The availability of our help is a real breakthrough.”

When asked how you came to the profession, Nikolai Vasilyevich answers with a smile: “I had no other choice.” Of course, after all, the total experience of the medical dynasty of his family is, just imagine, 190 years!

Both parents are doctors, and the father, the founder of the dynasty, Professor V.E. Polyakov, is one of the founders of pediatric oncology and hematology in the country. The man is extremely creative and gifted. In addition to practicing medicine, he writes fiction and poetry, is a member of the Writers’ Union and a member of the Public Council at the Russian Academic Youth Theater (RAMT).

-Vasily Evgenievich is familiar with a large number of famous people in the theater world and not only. For a long time he worked in sanaviation and where he had not been, what he had not seen. Soon he will be 85 years old, and he continues to be creative.

My mother is a pediatrician, my sister is also a pediatrician, followed in my mother’s footsteps, my wife is a cytologist.  My daughter recently graduated from a medical university. While raising my grandson, but there is definitely a desire to return to the profession.

And, nevertheless, despite such a powerful environment, Nikolai Vasilyevich did not enter the medical institute from the first time. I wonder why?

-I had the happiest childhood imaginable. In addition to general education, I studied at a music school and went to the sambo section – I was busy with something all the time.  Trainings, training camps, concerts, competitions.  I even dreamed of becoming a sailor. So I didn’t prepare specifically for admission to the medical institute, and there was a very big competition. I didn’t pass it, and Dad said, “Well, you’re going to study at a medical school, you’re going to smell gunpowder, so to speak. Maybe this experience will help you understand whether this is your occupation or not.” And I am very glad that this was my path to medicine.

My first practice from the college took place in the department of purulent surgery, where there was also intensive care. Everything was very specific there, it is clear what benefits you bring to a suffering person by applying a bandage, doing some procedures.  Already studying at the medical university, in the fourth year, I went to work as a nurse in the burn department of the children’s hospital, where I went to watch operations. This was the starting point, the click: I realized, this is mine.  Especially burn surgery, probably, in its severity, can only be compared with pediatric oncology, which I consider to be the pinnacle of healing, where holy people work.

Having graduated from the Second Med (now – the N.I. Pirogov RNIMU), Nikolai Vasilyevich came to the Research Institute of Urology of the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry of Russia, which he does not regret at all.

-Urology is an amazing discipline in which everyone can find their place, in which everyone can find themselves. Someone is inclined to endoscopy, someone to open surgery, someone to pharmacology – all these specialties are needed in urology.

-And who do you consider your teachers?

-You know, in addition to very well-known and authoritative surnames in the fate, it seems to me, of any doctor, the person with whom your love story with medicine began is of great importance. The surgeon of the 57th hospital, Dr. Petushkov, was the first to open this page to me back in college. Even when I was writing an essay for admission to the university, I told about him. We came to his practice. And I saw with my own eyes the real life of a real doctor.

Of course, Dr. Polyakov also had wonderful teachers in the future: the head doctor of the 9th Children’s Hospital, the legendary P.P. Pradeus, the head of the department L.Y. Penkov, the doctor-colleague A.E. Veselov, who today heads the children’s burn center of the Moscow region. And, of course, the titans who worked at the Research Institute of Urology in 1997 – N.A. Lopatkin, B.M. Pretzel, E.K. Yanenko.

Nikolay Vasilyevich started with pediatric urology, since he graduated from the pediatric faculty. Today, both adults and children are operated on, as a rule, almost all of their surgery is reconstructive.

-Our group performs all reconstructive plastic surgery on the upper and lower urinary tract. We correct both congenital anomalies and acquired defects,” explains Dr. Polyakov. – For example, narrowing of the ureter or urethra of various etymologies.  During the 25 years that I have been in the profession, a whole revolution has taken place in this area of medicine. If earlier everyone operated “openly” (with an incision), now 95 percent of such interventions are performed laparoscopically, that is, through small punctures, and we use more advanced reconstruction methods.   Take, for example, the extended defects of the upper and middle third of the ureter. More recently, these were, as a rule, organ-bearing operations or the intestine was sewn in there, which is also not the best option for the body. Today we use a flap of the cheek mucosa.

A lot of reconstructive operations related to congenital anomalies of the urethra – hypospadias, are carried out on the stream at our Institute today.

-Our profession is developing very rapidly. A couple of decades ago, who would have thought about the appearance of robots in our work? Today, there are such assistants in many clinics. So we are constantly learning and improving our skills,” says Dr. Polyakov with a twinkle in his eyes.

Yes, scientific and technological progress in medicine, especially in the last couple of decades, works wonders. But to our traditional question, what is the main thing in his profession, Nikolai Vasilyevich answers: “To help as many people as possible who need your help.”

-The system of providing assistance to the population has recently undergone significant modernization, and we feel it.  If earlier to come for treatment from the province, for example, to some Moscow medical center was almost comparable to a flight into space, some connections and calls were needed, now with the development, firstly, of information technology, secondly, the efforts of both the Ministry of Health and our administration of the joint Center, it is much easier to sign up for a consultation with us and get qualified advice.

Press Service of the NMIC of Radiology of the Ministry of Health of Russia