By Raffi Elliott
GetTreated Medical Travel.
Armenia is making its mark as a global medical tourism
hub, yet to the keen observer, this should come as no surprise. Despite its
tiny size, this Caucasian nation has contributed disproportionately to the
medical profession, through advances in medical research over the course of
many centuries. Armenians have been found in every aspect of medical
innovation, from the publication of Mkhitar Heratsi’s ‘Relief of Fevers’ in
1184 to the pioneering work of Drs. Simeon Minasian, Garabed Galstian, and
Baronig Matevosian during the American Civil War, though their contribution
goes much deeper.
Armenian doctors, medical researchers and inventors are
responsible for some of the most important life-saving innovations of the last
century.
1- Varaztad Kazanjian: Father of Modern Plastic Surgery
The Invention:
kazanjianAs a young man, Varaztad Kazanjian fled the
Ottoman Empire, where he worked in a local post-office due to the anti-Armenian
pogroms known as the Hamidian Massacre. Settling in Boston to start a new life,
Varaztad started working at a local wiring factory, where his extraordinary
dexterity with tools led him to study dentistry at Harvard. During the Great
War, Kazanjian was sent on a medical mission to the battlefields of France.
Despite being trained as a dentist, his compassion for the sheer number of
soldiers with horrific facial wounds he met lead him to experiment with various
treatments. The innovative procedures he worked with were often accomplished in
primitive conditions, in field hospitals near the front lines.
Why it’s important:
Dr. Kazanjian’s pioneering procedures directly lead to
establishing the medical field of plastic surgery, earning him the prestigious
position of first ever Professor of Plastic Surgery at Harvard. His efforts
didn’t go unrecognised by others either. He was awarded the Order of Saint
Michael and Saint George by HM King George V of Great Britain, as well as the
Honorary Award of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.
His work helped propel battlefield medicine into the 20th
century, allowing many wounded soldiers to recover from some of the most
horrific wounds brought by modern warfare. These techniques eventually became
commonplace in the civilian world as well. Victims of crashes, burns, and other
accidents now had access to some of the most cutting-edge facial reconstruction
technology in human history.
The importance of Dr.Kazanjian’s efforts may go unnoticed
for today’s casual consumers of cosmetic plastic surgery, but it’s worth
remembering that the history of perfect noses and perfect breasts starts with
an Armenian dentist’s struggle to stitch up wounded soldiers of World War One.
2- Michel Ter-Pogossian: PET scan
The Invention:
dr-ter-poghosianThe Positron Emissions Tomography scanner,
better known to the layperson as the PET scan, is one of the most recognisable
pieces of medical technology today, but had it not been for the efforts of the
German-Armenian nuclear physicist Michel Ter-Pogossian, this may not have been
the case.
A son of Armenian Genocide survivors, Michel
Ter-Pogossian was born in Berlin, Germany in 1925. Having witnessed the rise of
the Nazis, his family quickly eed to France when he was still a child. Michel
was not ready to let his adopted country fall to the same fate as his birth
place. He promptly took up the fight against the Nazis as part of the French
Resistance Movement during WWII while earning his degree at the University of
Paris’s Institute of Radium. He continued his studies after immigrating to Missouri
in 1946, where he attended classes at the Washington University of St. Louis,
eventually securing a faculty seat in its School of Medicine.
Why it’s important:
His most notable contribution to Science, the PET scanner
is known as one of the most promising methods of detecting early stages of
cancer, as well as for monitoring heart disease, allowing millions of people to
identify these life-threatening diseases in time to treat them.
3- Raymond Vahan Damadian: Inventor of the MRI
The Invention:
If modamadianst of us ever confuse the PET scanner with
anything else, it’s almost always the MRI Machine, but that’s OK, because the
MRI was alsoan Armenian invention; This time, by the Armenian-American
physician, Raymond Vahan Damadian.
Born to an Armenian family in New Mexico, Raymond had an
early interest in the physical sciences. With a bachelor’s degree in
mathematics already under his belt, he decided to pursue his interest in
medicine, graduating as an M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in
1960.
As a doctor, Raymond researched the effects of sodium and
potassium in living cells, eventually leading him to his first experiments
using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Raymond conducted the first-ever
diagnosis of cancer with a full-body scan in 1977 when he used his
newly-invented Magnetic Resonance Imagine (MRI) machine on a patient. Despite
controversy revolving around his being denied a Nobel Prize for the invention
that many believed entitled him to, Damadian never stopped improving on his
important research.
Why it’s important:
By inventing the MRI machine, Dr Damadian discovered a
new way for medical professionals to diagnose cancer and conduct follow-ups
without exposing the patient’s body to ionising radiation. This revolutionised
the field of cancer researched, and allowed for easier and safer cancer
diagnosis.
The MRI machine is also a very versatile as an imaging
technique. Today, it is also widely used in biomedical research, as well as in
the imaging of non-living objects. There are currently over 25 000 MRI machines
used in hospitals and research labs across the world, used in diverse fields of
research and medicine, including, but not limited to neurology, cardiovascular
research, oncology, and much more. The MRI machine is even preferred to CT
scanners when either technique could be used for the same effect.
4- Hrayr Shahinian: Pioneer in Microsurgical Techniques
The Invention:
dr-shahinianHrayr Shahinian, M.D., F.A.C.S. is recognised
as a pioneer of endoscopic surgical techniques, commonly used in order to treat
all sorts of skull-based disorders. After graduating from the American
University of Beirut in 1981, he continued on at the University of Chicago’s
Medical School. Having completed fellowships at the Department of Head and Neck
Surgery in the swiss city of Zurich, and in craniofacial surgery at New York
University, Dr Shahinian was certified by the American Board of Surgery in
1992.
Why it’s important:
Dr Shahinian’s new techniques provide a less invasive
alternative to older neurosurgical technology. His pioneering endoscopic
approach has since widely replaced traditional techniques across the United
States and is being used around the world from Canada to South Korea. He has
published over 80 academic papers on endoscopic techniques.
Dr Shahinian has since received numerous awards for his
work and has secured various patents. he was also honoured by NASA for his work
in the field of advanced medical technology.
5- Dr John Najarian: Father of modern Organ
Transplantation
The Invention:
dr-najarian
Though organ transplant procedures have been attempted
for decades, a high rate of rejection by the patient’s immune system made the
operation extremely dangerous and incurred a high probability of failure. This
all changed thanks to the pioneering work of Dr John Najarian.
Why it’s important:
The medical field that Dr Najarian entered back in the
early 1950s was quite different from what it is today. Modern organ transplant
techniques were in their infancy when a young John Najarian was considering
cardiology as a career option. The first successful kidney transplant in 1954
lead him to reconsider his path, leading him to proclaim: “That’s the field,
that’s something. If you can put in an organ in an individual and save his
life, that is remarkable and that’s the direction I want to go.” From that
point on, Dr Najarian concentrated his efforts in immunology in order to
facilitate kidney transplants, which until then had been complicated by a high
rejection rate by the body.
As the first surgeon in the world to conduct successful
pancreas and kidney transplants, his invention garnered him both praise and
controversy over the years. Despite overseeing the development and manufacture
of AntiLymphocyte Globulin (better known through the acronym “ALG”), which
helped patients bodies’ recognise and accept foreign organs, for over 25 years
at the University of Minnesota, his programme was eventually shut down by the
FDA because it had never received its approval. Despite Dr Najarian eventually
being cleared of all charges, the damage to his institution had already been
done. His research facility had lost a lot of funding, and a lot of skilled
researchers.
Despite this major setback, his groundbreaking research
and contribution to his field was recognised by many. Dr Najarian even recalls:
“To this day I can’t walk down the street and people don’t come up and shake my
hand. It’s the most amazing thing in the world”. After all, he managed to save
the lives of countless millions with his breakthroughs in organ transplants.
Though the field of medicine is the result of the
collective effort that has been propelled by the work of thousands upon
thousands of doctors, scientists, and inventors across millennia, one should
not discount the unique contribution of the inhabitants of a tiny nation,
nestled between the high mountains of the Caucasus. Their endeavours have made
now-mundane treatments such as Cancer prevention, plastic surgery, organ
transplants, and microsurgery unmistakable parts of modern medicine, saving
countless lives.
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