Didn't consider himself special: how a child prodigy from Baku became a genius of neurosurgery in America

All Soviet newspapers wrote about the wonderful boy from Baku Kostya Slavin, but he himself considered himself completely ordinary. Now Konstantin Vladimirovich is 52 years old, he is one of the leading American neurosurgeons. Slavin is convinced that life gave him a head start - and he managed to use it correctly, reports Pravmir.

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They did not take the pioneers: not mature enough

From childhood, Kostya showed outstanding mental abilities: he learned to read before he was two years old, at the age of five, with the special permission of the Minister of Education of Azerbaijan, he entered the first grade of secondary school. He graduated from primary school as an external student in 2 years of study, moving to grade 5 at the age of seven. His parents sent him to school at the age of five, although usually at this age they had not yet accepted. It was necessary to obtain permission from the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan, undergo a special medical commission, examination by a psychologist. His father was asked: "How can he sit for 45 minutes in class?" He replied: “Just like the others. Everyone will sit - and he will sit. "
The boy was very obedient. I was almost not distracted by extraneous desires common to most children. The child does what he is asked to do and does not ask questions. Konstantin recalls: “Even now, when I meet with my classmates, it never occurs to anyone to ask:“ Why did you go to school so early, what was that all about? ”. Nobody is surprised. "

He did not feel any discomfort - he was probably so small that he was not interested in it. In physical education, he could not do what others did, but in everything else he could.
Konstantin now recalls that if someone teased him, he did not pay attention. Moreover, he did not stay in primary school. In the first I studied for three months - and transferred to the second. I studied there for a year, moved on to the third, and from there almost immediately to the fourth. As a result, he turned out to be four years younger than all his classmates, they were 11, and he was seven, so he was not accepted as a pioneer. I have not passed by age.
“As a child, I had an excellent popular book on anatomy and medical history, From Head to Toe. I knew her by heart. Then I enrolled in an evening medical class for high school students. I was 10-11, I studied together with everyone, visited the morgue, it was an interesting experience, ”says Slavin.

In 1982, at the age of 13, he graduated from high school with a gold medal and, with the permission of the Ministry of Health of Azerbaijan, entered the Azerbaijan State Medical Institute named after A. N. Narimanov (now Azerbaijan Medical University), graduated with honors in 1988.

It turned out that absolutely no regulatory documents stipulate the minimum age of the applicant. It is said that you can apply until 35 years old, but at what age it is not written. That is, there were no formal obstacles to training.

The personal permission of Heydar Aliyev helped. He passed the first exam perfectly - and was immediately accepted with a gold medal.
People sometimes came to Kostya to look, but he did not pay attention. “Gradually I grew up, became stronger physically, and in my third year I got a mustache,” the doctor recalls, “they always supported me, no one hurt me.”

In America? Never!

He studied well and became a Lenin scholar. In addition, he was a member of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Azerbaijan, then a member of the Communist Party. At that time he was very ideological, conscientious, did not doubt that communism was great. Slavin's father was a political officer and, despite some skepticism, a professional communist. All this was considered normal, in the order of things.

Still, Slavin went to America with a delegation of five people - three students and two accompanying persons.

He was very impressed with what he faced in the United States. First, it seemed to him that all his peers, 17-year-olds, were completely uneducated. Secondly, they were taken to poor areas, real ghettos, and this made a heavy impression. He returned home and said that he would never go to America in his life, it is very bad there, and everything that is told about the United States on TV is pure truth. He even spoke with his impressions at the Komsomol congress. None of his acquaintances who left for America returned. He became an exception.

“Well, the second time in America, in 1990, I came to America as a graduate student, on professional exchange, communicated with fellow neurosurgeons, and it was a completely different impression. In addition, I already had a family, a child, the USSR was falling apart, it was difficult. When I was invited to work, it was not perceived as emigration. There was a return ticket in my pocket. We arrived for a year and stayed, ”says Konstantin.

"Everyone unlearned the first time, and I - already the second"

Slavin in America had to go through all over again, undergo residency, internship. He went and passed everything the first time, six months after his arrival, although before that he studied at the Azerbaijani medical institute, and "not at Harvard."

“I don't consider myself a genius or any special, but I had more time, because life gave me a head start. In America, I finished my studies at about the same time as my American peers. Only they unlearned the first time, and I already did the second, - says the doctor, - English, however, was funny for me, after the Azerbaijani school was not even specialized. But there was enough for the exams. And when you work, there is no time to really think about whether you are speaking right or wrong. It comes by itself. "

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Mom's birthday operation

An important life memory is the first independent operation. After the institute, Slavin came to Moscow, in September he entered the residency, began to lead patients. He was 19 years old. He said to one of his patients: “You need to do such and such an operation. I can do it myself, but I'm a first year resident. You have the right to ask someone more experienced. " And the patient calmly answered him: "No, that you, I trust you."

Of course, before that, he had assisted in operations for many years, this was not the first time he took up a knife. Apparently, the person was somehow imbued with it. I understood that any doctor would have an operation first. Nobody is born a ready-made surgeon with the right skills. Or maybe in Soviet times people were in some sense more trusting and understanding.
Konstantin Vladimirovich recalls: “It was December 3, mom's birthday. I called her and said: “Mom, I congratulate you, and I have such an event today! I did the first operation. " Since then I have made a lot of them, interesting and difficult, but I will never forget that first one, although it was sheer nonsense: a small tumor on a nerve in my leg. "

Adulthood

Here is how Slavin himself says about it: “Adulthood is a relative concept. You can be infantile at forty, and you can be a responsible person at a relatively small biological age. I believe that adulthood was enough for me, because I went through the same years of study at the medical institute as others, without skipping over courses. Institute, residency, graduate school, residency - everything was like everyone else's, just a few years earlier. Poor outcomes are difficult for a doctor at any age. People die, there is no medicine without it, but it is always very painful and leaves a mark for life. However, I always say in lectures: only those who do not operate are not faced with complications. The question is not whether there will be complications (alas, there will be), but how to overcome their consequences and how to talk to the patient so that he is ready for them. Here, in America, a person must make all decisions for himself - from whether it is worth crossing the road to whether or not to lie down on the operating table. And the doctor must provide him with all the information he needs to make a well-thought-out decision. This is the art of medicine and surgery. "

Konstantin Slavin is currently a Practicing Neurosurgeon at the University of Illinois Hospital, Acting Professor of Neurosurgery, Head of the Department of Stereotaxic and Functional Neurosurgery at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Reads scientific lectures at universities and clinics in the USA, Russia, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia. Author of over 400 scientific works and publications, 4 patents for inventions. Permanent member of international research neurosurgical communities and associations, from 2012 to 2014 President of the American Society of Stereotaxic and Functional Neurosurgery ASSFN. For a long time, it has been financing and conducting research and development in the field of functional neurosurgery.

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Children and parents

About parenting Konstantin Vladimirovich says: “My mom and dad have never made a cult out of my education, they never made me a genius or an idol. They raised me like an ordinary boy, and I was. My children are also quite ordinary, albeit smart. Probably, they could well have done a year in two, but there was no such goal. The son, however, was always a year younger than those with whom he studied, but he did not at all seek to break out. Now he is well settled and lives in San Francisco. The daughter lives in Washington. They did not become doctors. "

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