Neurosurgeon Anatolii Son: The most important thing for a doctor is not to stop learning

At the end of May, the leading international anesthetists, resuscitative surgeons, and surgeons from eight countries will gather at the International Black Sea Pearl-2019 Congress. The Congress is held by the Odessa National Medical University for the sixth time in a row. Together with the legends of modern medicine, lectures will be delivered by Odessa specialists. A well-known neurosurgeon, a vice-rector of ONMedU Professor Anatoly Son will tell about the treatment of rupture aneurysms and existing myths. Ukrainian surgeons treat the dangerous disease with the most advanced methods, though medical officials do not even include it in official statistics.
What lecture and for whom will you read?
– This congress is interdisciplinary, so the audience will be different: surgeons, neurosurgeons, traumatologists, neurologists. But, above all, there will be anesthetists. My main lecture is mythologization in intensive care during aneurysm ruptures. There are indeed many controversial issues and persistent myths. I intend to convey not only my point of view, but also the majority of my colleagues-neurosurgeons regarding these myths.
How is the problem of aneurysm relevant to Ukraine? Is there a disease statistics?
– In Ukraine, unfortunately, there is no medical statistics at all, and not only about cerebral aneurysms. We do not have real statistics on infectious diseases. For example, measles, we de facto have an epidemic, de jure – no. The statistics of the Ministry of Health do not correspond to reality. Eliminated Institute of Freelance Experts at the Ministry of Health, in administrative structures of regional and urban, and as a result nobody has the real numbers. Even the Academic Council of the MOH has been eliminated! The only thing we can say about aneurysm: there is one in every five inhabitants of the planet. Breaches of cerebral aneurysms, according to neurosurgical literature, occur from 4 to 28 cases per 100,000 population per year. In our clinic, we operate about 50 patients with brain aneurysm ruptures every year.
Is the disease diagnosed?
– By a special survey. But, naturally, giving it a fifth of the population of the Earth will not be correct. Most aneurysms calmly exist and do not make themselves known. And some are immediately manifested by rupture and hemorrhage, and this is a catastrophe. Here we are turning on and helping such patients.
Is the method of treatment only surgical?
– There are two methods, both surgical. The first one is an endovascular method, in which a thrombosing agent is introduced into the aneurysm via the leading artery, most often it is a special spiral that causes internal thrombosis. The second method, more precisely, was the first historical, microsurgical-closure of aneurysms in an open way.
Which of them do you teach your students?
– Our clinic does not have the ability to work endovascularly. Is it good or bad? Recent studies show a significantly higher efficiency and safety of the microsurgical method itself. This method is now very actively developing in developed countries and pushing the endovascular to the background. All because the endovascular method is more dangerous for rupture of aneurysms during the operation, their recanalization after a while, conceals a lot of complications. We necessarily talk with students about both methods, but we can only show the microsurgical one in the clinic.
Are you a practicing specialist, how often do you speak at different conferences and, most importantly, do you consider it useful?
– If the rector lets me go, then about once every two or three months I speak somewhere. The geography is the widest, from Ukraine to Tokyo and Chicago. I believe that the main thing for a doctor is not to stop learning and master new technologies. I had a period when it seemed that it was time to stop. However, today, when technology is growing, I learn and still manage to keep up with them. A very important person for me, my colleague and friend, the world-renowned neurosurgeon from Helsinki, Professor Juha Kernessniei says: train your hands and brain every day.