To the 90th birthday of Professor Vladimir Shlyapnikov

The article is dedicated to the 90th birthday of Professor Vladimir Shlyapnikov, a famous scientist, pathologist, teacher, and healthcare organizer. The article reveals the role of Vladimir Shlyapnikov in the development of pathology, higher medical education, and research work in the Soviet Russia. The professional activities of Professor Vladimir Shlyapnikov had a significant impact on the development of pathology as a science, the improvement of the educational process, and research activities in the field of morphology. Vladimir Shlyapnikov was born on April 22, 1935 in Saratov in a family of young doctors, the Shlyapnikov, Nikolay and Ekaterina. His father, Nikolay Shlyapnikov (1899-1970), was an assistant at the Department of Pathology at the Saratov State Medical Institute at that time and was the head of this department from 1938 to 1940. Later, the Shlyapnikov family moved to the city of Kuibyshev. A graduate of the Samara State Medical Institute in 1959, Vladimir, while still a student, spent five years engaged in research work in the field of morphology to study the embryonic development of the lungs, their segmental structure and innervation. During this time, he made seven reports at student scientific sessions in different cities, published abstracts of the reports and the first article «On the state of the nervous apparatus of the lungs in human fetuses aged two to six months» in a collection of scientific student papers. In November 1958, he made a scientific report on the segmental structure of the lungs and the development of segments in the human fetus. Then Vladimir Shlyapnikov studied in the graduate school of the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical Institute in the Pathology Department, headed by Professor Anatoly Strukov. From 1965 to 1978 he worked at the Kuibyshev State Medical Institute as a Professor of the Pathology Department, head of the Central Scientific Research Laboratory, and vice-rector for teaching work. The Kuibyshev State Medical Institute was the main place in the life of Professor Vladimir Shlyapnikov where he developed as a scientist, teacher, and administrator, contributing to the improvement of higher medical education. As a result, he was appointed head of the Main Directorate of Educational Institutions of the Ministry of Health of the Soviet Russia, where he worked from 1978 to 1988. At the same time, he was a member of the board of the All-Union Society of Pathologists and a member of the editorial board of the scientific journal «Archive of Pathology». The last three years before his untimely death, he was deputy chairman of the Higher Attestation Commission of the USSR. During his work in the cities of Kuibyshev and Moscow, Professor Vladimir Shlyapnikov held many republican conferences on various issues of science, teaching, and carried out scientific research. Under his editorship, 4 thematic collections were published, and a monograph, unique in world and Russian literature, «Atelectasis and Atelectatic Pneumonia» (1978) was published. His achievements have not lost their significance even today.