Past, present and future of the department of ophthalmology of the Kazan state medical academy (to the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the department)

The history of the department of ophthalmology of the Kazan State Medical Academy for the 90-year period was analyzed. The department was founded in September, 1922. The reason for the foundation of the department was the trachoma that was rampant at that time in the Volga region. Academician V.V. Chirkovskiy (1874-1956), who headed the department from 1922 to 1928, was the founder and the first director of the first in USSR Trachoma Institution based in Kazan. From 1929 to 1932 professor Valentin Yemel’yanovich Adamyuk (1877-1950), the honoured Scientific researcher of the republic of Tatarstan was the head of the eye clinics of the medical academy and of the Scientific and Research Trachoma Institution. In 1932 professor, the honoured Scientific researcher of the republic of Tatarstan Alexandr Nikolaevich Murzin (1885-1954) has won the elections and headed the department. He secured the merging of the Scientific and Research Trachoma Institution and the eye clinics of the medical academy into the one institution. Thanks to the proper healthcare management and treatment and prevention measures trachoma was eliminated in republic of Tatarstan in 1964. Later, the department was chaired by Alexandr Nikiforovich Kruglov (1952-1964), Kamilya Islamovna Gafarova (1964-1967), Moisey Bencionovich Wufgart (1967-1987), Liyuda Bakhtigareevna Galiaskarova (1987-1996), Marina Vladimirovna Kuznetsova (1996-2012). Since March 2012 the department is headed by PhD, Principal out-of-staff ophthalmologist of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Tatarstan Aidar Nailevich Amirov. Nowadays the department staff completes over 5000 complicated eye microsurgeries yearly, and also consults the patients form Republic of Tatarstan and nearby regions with complicated cases of different eye diseases at the out-patients clinic and departments of the hospital.