Outstanding Graduates of Karazin University: Orthopedist Mykhailo Sytenko

Mykhailo Sytenko is a well-known orthopedic surgeon and traumatologist. He graduated from Kharkiv University School of Medicine in 1910. He stayed at the Department of Operative Surgery and Topographic Anatomy to prepare for a professorship, while working at the School’s Surgical Clinic.

In 1911, he began working at the Kharkiv Women's Medical Institute. From 1914 to 1920, he was a military surgeon, and from 1921 he was the chief physician of the Kharkiv Medical and Mechanical Institute. From 1926 until the end of his life, he worked as director of the Ukrainian State Clinical Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology. He was the founder and first head of the Department of Orthopedics at the Kharkiv Institute for Advanced Training of Physicians. In 1935, he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

The scientist's research works focus on military field surgery, pseudoarthrosis, the use of bone grafting, congenital deformities of the musculoskeletal system, etc. He proposed several orthopedic surgeries, created new forms of trauma treatment facilities in Ukraine.

In 1940, the name of Mykhailo Sytenko was given to the Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology in Kharkiv (now M. I. Sytenko Institute of Spine and Joint Pathology of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine). There is a memorial plaque erected in his honor in the premises of the Institute.