Background
Semen Nikolaevich Hechinashvili was born on November 26, 1919 in Kutais, Georgia.
Semen Nikolaevich Hechinashvili was born on November 26, 1919 in Kutais, Georgia.
In 1941 Semen Nikolaevich Hechinashvili graduated from the Tbilisi Medical Institute. In 1943 he passed Doctor of Science defense, and in 1949 - a doctoral thesis.
Hechinashvili worked as an ordinator of the otorhinolaryngology department of the Republican Central Clinical Hospital in Tbilisi (1941-1944), assistant (1944-1945), assistant professor (1946-1948), professor (1949-1951) of the otorhinolaryngology department of the Tbilisi Institute for advanced doctors' training. From 1951 he was the head of the otorhinolaryngologiy department of the Tbilisi Institute for advanced doctors' training (now the Tbilisi Medical Academy). From 1942 till 1951 he worked part-time at the Institute of Physiology named after I.S. Beritashvili of the Georgian SSR Academy of Sciences. From 1971 till 1980 he was the rector of the Tbilisi Institute for advanced doctors' training.
Semen Nikolaevich Hechinashvili is the author of about two hundred scientific works, including monographs, co-author of the two otorhinolaryngological manuals. He developed new modifications of hearing-improving operations for patients with otosclerosis, participated in the development of the methods of objective audiometry by recording evoked hearing potentials, new methods of larynxical operation with its tumors. Hechinashvili developed and introduced operations with the usage of argon laser into clinical practice, new methods of stopping nasal bleeding, as well as endonasal surgeries.
In 1961 Semen Nikolaevich Hechinashvili was elected as a corresponding member, in 1980 – a ful l member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, in 1996 – a full member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. Member of the German Academy of Natural Sciences (Leopoldina) (1976), honorarable doctor of the Berlin University named after Humboldt, honorable member of the scientific societies of otolaryngologists in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria and the GDR (1978).
