In memory of Kristaps Juris Keggi — a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Kristaps Juris Keggi was born on August 9, 1934 in Riga in the family of surgeon Janis Keggi. In 1944, the family moved to Germany and then to the United States, where Kristaps received his medical education at Yale University. In 1966, he became an associate professor at the University’s Orthopaedic school and focused on hip and knee arthroplasty. In the 70s of the twentieth century, Kristaps Keggi developed direct anterior approach to the hip joint and started to do arthroplasty using a minimally invasive technique. Over the years, he performed more than 10,000 total hip replacements with his technology at hospitals in New Haven and Waterbury, Connecticut, and authored 135 scientific papers and monographs. In 1989, Kristaps became a Clinical professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at Yale Medical School and in 2008 was elected a Full professor. During this time, he trained hundreds of residents and became the founder of his own orthopedic school. Keggi was known for a variety of innovative technologies that were widely used all over the world. In 1988, Keggi organized a non-profit Orthopedic Foundation to provide educational programs for official academic exchanges between the United States and the republics of the USSR. For 10 years, more than 300 doctors from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic States, Central Asia, Vietnam and East Germany have received scholarships and the opportunity to learn the basics of the hip and knee arthroplasties In parallel, he traveled to the clinics with lectures, seminars and demonstration surgeries. For outstanding services to national healthcare, in 1993 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and, subsequently, the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2012, Professor Keggi was awarded the silver medal “For Medical Dignity and Service to Russian Medicine”. A brilliant surgeon, inventor, scientist and teacher, successful athlete, philanthropist, Kristaps Juris Keggi died on July 4, 2023, leaving in our hearts a feeling of deep respect and vivid impressions from communicating with him.