Pediatrics, Institute of

(full name, Institute of Pediatrics of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR), a scientific research institution at which important aspects of the physiology and pathology of children are studied. The Institute of Pediatrics was founded in Moscow in 1922 as the State Institute for the Health Care of Mothers and Children; it received its present name in 1945, when it was incorporated into the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR. As of 1974, the institute included ten clinical departments, nine laboratories, a polyclinic, and sections for functional diagnosis, physical therapy, and roentgenology, as well as a section for organizing and coordinating scientific activities.

The institute’s principal areas of research include the development of an organizational and scientific basis for the treatment and prevention of children’s diseases, the physiology of growth and development in children, and the physiology and pathology of newborns. Other principal areas of pediatric research are chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular and hematologic diseases, allergic diseases, renal and gastrointestinal diseases, and the pathology of infections. The Institute of Pediatrics is a center for scientific methodology that directs and coordinates research at the republic institutes of pediatrics as well as at the pediatrics departments of medical institutes. It has residency (klinicheskaia ordinaturd) and graduate (aspiranturd) programs and is authorized to accept candidate’s and doctoral dissertations for defense. It periodically publishes the proceedings and transactions of scientific meetings and conferences.

The well-known pediatricians G. N. Speranskii, O. D. Sokolova-Ponomareva, A. I. Dobrokhotova, and N. M. Shchelovanov have all worked at some time in the institute, which was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1973 and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1947.