Vladimir A. Negovsky the father of ‘reanimatology’

Abstract

Vladimir A. Negovsky of Moscow (Figs. 1 and 2) created the science of resuscitation medicine [1,2]. This he calls ‘reanimatology’ [3], which includes the prevention and treatment of critical terminal states and post-resuscitation disease. This term makes more sense than our terms ‘resuscitation’ and ‘intensive care’ for two reasons: First, it focuses on ‘anima’ the mind or spirit, indicating that resuscitation efforts must aim for survival without brain damage. Secondly it focuses on science (‘--ology’) while our terms mean methods. Americans, however, may think of ‘anima'as animation for Disney movies. A compromise would be to equate ‘critical care medicine’ (CCM) with ‘resuscitology’ [4] and to identify CPR as methods of basic, advanced, and prolonged life support, i.e. ‘cardiopulmonary–cerebral resuscitation’ (CPCR) [5].