Akhunbaev, Isa

Born Sept. 12 (25), 1908, in the village of Tur-Aigir. Soviet surgeon; academician (1954) and first president of the Academy of Sciences of the Kirghiz SSR (1954–60); corresponding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1948). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

Akhunbaev graduated from the Middle Asian Medical Institute in 1935. From 1935 to 1937 he was the deputy people’s commissioner of health of the Kirghiz SSR, and since 1948 he has been the director of the Kirghiz Medical Institute, as well as the head of the department of general surgery (since 1946). His basic works are dedicated to the study of endemic goiter, appendicitis in children, and echinococcosis. Akhunbaev was one of the initiators of lung surgery in Khirgizia. He became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kirghizia in 1949. He was a deputy to the Second and Fourth Congresses of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Akhunbaev became a member of the International Association of Surgeons in 1948. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin, four other orders, and medals.