If Dr Strange was Russian, it would be this guy – The only Surgeon to have a planet named after him.

He’s been called many names, from the ‘Michelangelo of Orthopaedics’ to the ‘Magician from Kurgan’ - needless to say, all these names given to him serves as testament to his unparalleled skills, brilliantness and sheer humility, which is something we all love about people who are very good in what they do.

Imagining of a Russian Dr Strange

Enter Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov or better known as Ilizarov. Yes I know what you’re thinking,

“Wazir, isn’t this the guy who pioneered the Ilizarov technique that you mentioned in your previous post?”

Yes, this is him and I touched very briefly about him in the previous because 1) I didn’t want to side-track from the main story on limb-lengthening surgery in India (It was getting too long anyway) and 2) Because this dude deserves a post entirely dedicated to himself.

Humble beginning

Like most great man in history, their rise to fame often begins with humble beginning and Ilizarov was no exception. Born on the 15th of June 1921 as the sixth child to a poor Jewish peasant family in Poland, Ilizarov and his family moved around a few times before enrolling himself into an educational establishment set up to prepare those from the lower strata of society for higher education. Given his sheer interest and passion in medicine, Ilizarov got himself into the renowned Crimea Medical School in Simferopol.

The first Hospital he was stationed in was a remote hospital in a village in Kurgan Oblast, Siberia and he slowly rose through the ranks before becoming the Chief of the Department of Trauma and Orthopaedics in the Regional Hospital for War Veterans in Kurgan in 1955. But even before he became the chief of the Trauma departments, he already made a name for himself in 1951 by inventing a method that would resonate through the entire field of Orthopaedics; a technique that captured and consolidated his brilliance – The Ilizarov Technique

Ilizarov apparatus

He discovered that a slight calculated distraction of a bone without severing the periosteum around it will allow the separation of the two halves of the bone and through fixation (Via Ilizarov apparatus), the bone would grow to fill the gap in between, thus adding to the bone length. He also found that bone regrows at a fairly uniform rate across ethnicities and conditions. Of course a lot of practitioners were sceptic about this new method especially when it’s from a nobody who works in rural hospital. He was even labelled as a ‘quack’ but he didn’t let it get to him because he knew what he was doing was revolutionary and he believed in his technique. As time passes by and more success was attained through his technique, the increasing statistic speaks for itself and the rest was history. It was around this time he was known as ‘The Magician from Kurgan’

Stint at great success and stardom

Carlo Mauri

Carlo Mauri was a famous Italian Mountaineer and Photojournalist who got involved in skiing accident that left him with deformity in his lower limbs. He was left to suffer from the lack of ability to move and the pain from the malformed limbs for 10 years as the complexities of his condition at the time made Italian physicians gave up on trying. He ventured into the Iron curtain amidst the cold war to seek help from Ilizarov to which Ilizarov treated his equinus deformity and pseudoathrosis successfully. Mauri immediately coined the title ‘The Michelangelo of Orthopaedics’ and following his return to Italy, the surgeons there were completely amazed and dumbfounded to see the miracle that has enabled the man who was crippled for ten years, walked like a normal person again.

Mauri receiving treatment from Ilizarov

They were so impressed, the AO Italy conference went to great length to get him out of the Iron Curtain, into Italy for him to give lectures in 1981 in front of more than 200 participants from countries such as Switzerland, Austria and Germany. This was the first time the Magician from Kurgan was able to speak outside of the USSR and the after the lecture, he received 10 minutes of standing ovation from some of the best minds in medicine the world has to offer at the time.

Recognition

Ilizarov Center in Kurgan

He had received multitudes of local and international awards, honours, recognitions and prizes in his lifetime as well as a few centres and conference named after him but my most favourite of all would have to be the fact that this guy has a planet named after him and that planet is the 3750 Ilizarov!

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