Kyiv

National Medical University

Department of Pathophysiology

Head of Dapertment Prof Mykola Kryshtal had heard about our project from Prof Sergey Zyablitsev, who had fled to Kiev to escape the war in eastern Ukraine. In Donetsk, Prof Zyablitsev had signed an agreement with us in 2013 as head of the Department of Pathophysiology. In Kyiv, he was able to convince his colleagues to pursue humane education.

Extremely cruel animal experiments were carried out in the pathophysiology course. The effects of positive and negative pressure, overheating, lack of oxygen, starvation, haemorrhagic shock, fever, pulmonary oedema caused by poison, suffocation, epileptic seizures and heart failure are studied in rats; blood clot formation, ventricular fibrillation and the effect of poisons on the heart in frogs; inflammation and anaphylactic shock in guinea pigs; hypoglycaemic coma, starvation, pain reactions and airway constriction in rabbits.

Up to now, 1,350 animals (820 frogs, 420 rats, 40 guinea pigs and 70 rabbits) have died for this purpose every year. This will end on 1 September 2015. The agreement was signed on 23 March 2015.

The department had requested an interactive board instead of a projector or notebook, and of course, we fulfilled their wish. We also donated a large number of films and computer programmes to the department. The lecturers also want to make use of a series of old films on pathophysiology from Soviet times, which project manager Dimitrij Leporskij had brought with him from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Prof Mykola Kryshtal (left) and Prof Sergey Zyablitsev (right)

The donated interactive board.