About us

The Department of Internal and Occupational Diseases was established in 1977 on the basis of the Clinical Department of the Kharkiv Research Institute of Occupational Health and Occupational Diseases.
From 1977 to 2009 prof. I.F. Kostyuk headed the department. Since 2009 the head of the department is Honored Educator of Ukraine, Doctor of Medical Science, and Professor Kapustnyk Valeriy Andriyovych – a graduate of the Kharkiv Medical Institute, who successfully passed the way from the assistant, candidate of medical Science to Professor, Doctor of Medical Science, First Vice-Rector and Rector of Kharkiv National Medical University. Doctor of medical science Boris Oleksiyovych Shelest is currently the acting head of the department.
At the time of its foundation, the department had 5 teachers, and today – 24.

Education at the department is conducted in Ukrainian, Russian, English.

Disciplines taught at the department:

•  Discipline “Occupational Diseases” –
• with 5th year students majoring in 222 “Medicine”;
• with students of I and II courses of the bachelor’s degree studying on a specialty “Nursing”;
• Discipline “Internal Medicine” –
• with students of IV, V, VI courses, studying in the specialty 222 “Medicine”;
• with students of III and IV courses studying in the specialty “Dentistry”;
• Discipline “Current issues of rheumatology” (elective course) – with 5th year students majoring in 222 “Medicine”;
• Discipline “Diseases of Civilization” – with undergraduates majoring in “Technology of Medical Diagnosis and Treatment”
• in the discipline “Military Field Therapy” with 5th year students.

Areas of research. Research work of the department is devoted to the issues of industrial cardiology, study of the effect of industrial aerosol and vibration on the body on machinery manufacturing workers. The peculiarities of the course of cardiovascular pathology in different professional groups are studied, the relationship of occupational diseases with hypertension, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease.
The main scientific achievements of the department. In recent years, the department has been conducting research work on the program “Fighting hypertension in the organized population (industry) of Kharkiv”. The main scientific achievements of the department. The work made it possible to actively identify people suffering from hypertension, treat them and assess the possibility of reducing morbidity and mortality primarily from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. A system of treatment of arterial hypertension in industrial workers has been developed, the influence of occupational factors in the occurrence of arterial hypertension has been determined.
According to the results of research work of the department 2 doctoral and 4 candidate dissertations in the period 2016-2021 were defended. Scientific achievements are covered in many articles in professional journals of Ukraine and the world, including 21 articles for 2016-2021 in publications included in the scientific databases SCOPUS / Web of Science.
The results of the scientific work of the department were presented at the national congresses of cardiologists of Ukraine, the congress of pulmonologists of Ukraine, other professional forums of Ukraine. Scientific achievements were widely reported abroad at the following international congresses: European Respiratory Society (Paris, France), European Congress Heart Failure 2019: 6th World Congress on Acute Heart Failure (Athens, Greece); European Atherosclerosis Society Congress (Maastricht, The Netherlands), 29 European meeting on hypertension and cardiovascular protection (Milan, Italy); Congresses of the Korean Society of Cardiology (Seoul, Republic of Korea), at scientific and practical conferences of various countries, including Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, etc.
The concept of vibration disease as a membrane pathology is formulated, which consists, in particular, in the violation of transmembrane calcium metabolism, disintegration of erythrocyte cytoskeleton proteins with changes in the properties of the membrane spectrin-actin complex. This became the basis for the development of pathogenetic therapy with the use of slow calcium channel blockers in the treatment of this category of patients.

Clinical bases of the department are:

• Clinic of the Research Institute of Occupational Hygiene and Occupational Diseases of Kharkiv National Medical University.
• Military Medical Clinical Center of the Northern Region of the Department of Health of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (unit A3306).
• Kharkiv Clinical Hospital on Railway Transport № 2 Branch “Health Care Center” of PJSC “Ukrzaliznytsia”.

As part of medical and diagnostic work, the staff of the department at the main clinical bases implements the latest methods of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of internal and occupational diseases.

Teachers of the department provide advisory assistance to workers of industrial enterprises and patients of polyclinics of the city of Kharkiv, as well as conduct organizational and methodological work for occupational pathologists and therapists.

Employees of the department are members of the following international associations:

• Heart failure association;
• European Respiratory Society;
• European Association of Preventive Cardiology;
• European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging;
• Council on Hypertension Regular;
• European Atherosclerosis Society.

At the postgraduate stage, graduates of medical Universities are taught:

in the specialty “Occupational pathology”:

• Cycle of primary specialization;
• Pre-certification cycle;
• Cycles of thematic improvement on certain issues of occupational pathology;

In the specialty “Therapy”:

• Distinct topics of the cycle of primary specialization;
• Some topics of the pre-certification cycle;
• Distinct topics of thematic improvement cycles.