The Most Famous

PHYSICIANS from Ukraine

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This page contains a list of the greatest Ukrainian Physicians. The pantheon dataset contains 726 Physicians, 7 of which were born in Ukraine. This makes Ukraine the birth place of the 21st most number of Physicians behind Sweden, and China.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Ukrainian Physicians of all time. This list of famous Ukrainian Physicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Ukrainian Physicians.

Photo of Selman Waksman

1. Selman Waksman (1888 - 1973)

With an HPI of 65.98, Selman Waksman is the most famous Ukrainian Physician.  His biography has been translated into 65 different languages on wikipedia.

Selman Abraham Waksman (July 22, 1888 – August 16, 1973) was a Jewish Ukrainian inventor, Nobel Prize laureate, biochemist and microbiologist whose research into the decomposition of organisms that live in soil enabled the discovery of streptomycin and several other antibiotics. A professor of biochemistry and microbiology at Rutgers University for four decades, he discovered several antibiotics (and introduced the modern sense of that word to name them), and he introduced procedures that have led to the development of many others. The proceeds earned from the licensing of his patents funded a foundation for microbiological research, which established the Waksman Institute of Microbiology located at the Rutgers University Busch Campus in Piscataway, New Jersey (USA). In 1952, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "ingenious, systematic, and successful studies of the soil microbes that led to the discovery of streptomycin." Waksman and his foundation later were sued by Albert Schatz, one of his Ph.D. students and the discoverer of streptomycin, for minimizing Schatz's role in the discovery. In 2005, Selman Waksman was granted an ACS National Historic Chemical Landmark in recognition of the significant work of his lab in isolating more than 15 antibiotics, including streptomycin, which was the first effective treatment for tuberculosis.

Photo of Vladimir Dal

2. Vladimir Dal (1801 - 1872)

With an HPI of 57.93, Vladimir Dal is the 2nd most famous Ukrainian Physician.  His biography has been translated into 42 different languages.

Vladimir Ivanovich Dal (Russian: Владимир Иванович Даль, [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr ɨˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈdalʲ]; 22 November 1801 – 4 October 1872) was a noted Russian-language lexicographer, polyglot, Turkologist, and founding member of the Russian Geographical Society. During his lifetime he compiled and documented the oral history of the region that was later published in Russian and became part of modern folklore.

Photo of Wilhelm Stekel

3. Wilhelm Stekel (1868 - 1940)

With an HPI of 52.40, Wilhelm Stekel is the 3rd most famous Ukrainian Physician.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Wilhelm Stekel (German: [ˈʃteːkəl]; 18 March 1868 – 25 June 1940) was an Austrian physician and psychologist, who became one of Sigmund Freud's earliest followers, and was once described as "Freud's most distinguished pupil". According to Ernest Jones, "Stekel may be accorded the honour, together with Freud, of having founded the first psycho-analytic society". However, a phrase used by Freud in a letter to Stekel, "the Psychological Society founded by you", suggests that the initiative was entirely Stekel's. Jones also wrote of Stekel that he was "a naturally gifted psychologist with an unusual flair for detecting repressed material". Freud and Stekel later had a falling-out, with Freud announcing in November 1912 that "Stekel is going his own way". A letter from Freud to Stekel dated January 1924 indicates that the falling out was on interpersonal rather than theoretical grounds, and that at some point Freud developed a low opinion of his former associate. He wrote: "I...contradict your often repeated assertion that you were rejected by me on account of scientific differences. This sounds quite good in public but it doesn't correspond with the truth. It was exclusively your personal qualities—usually described as character and behavior—which made collaboration with you impossible for my friends and myself." Stekel's works are translated and published in many languages.

Photo of Aleksandr Bogomolets

4. Aleksandr Bogomolets (1881 - 1946)

With an HPI of 51.04, Aleksandr Bogomolets is the 4th most famous Ukrainian Physician.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Bogomolets (Ukrainian: Олександр Олександрович Богомолець; Russian: Александр Александрович Богомолец, romanized: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bogomolets; 24 May 1881 – 19 July 1946) was a Soviet and Ukrainian pathophysiologist. His father was the physician and revolutionary Oleksandr Mykhailovych Bogomolets (1850–1935). He was president of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and director of the Institute of clinical Physiology in Kyiv. His laboratories were located in Georgia, where he had a permanent research unit attached to the Academy of Sciences (1937). According to Zhores Medvedev, this was made possible by Stalin, who wanted members of the Experimental Institute to study the extension of life expectancy. He developed antireticular cytotoxic serum. In 1938, in Kyiv, Oleksandr Bogomolets convened the world’s first scientific conference on aging and longevity.

Photo of Grunya Sukhareva

5. Grunya Sukhareva (1891 - 1981)

With an HPI of 50.93, Grunya Sukhareva is the 5th most famous Ukrainian Physician.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva (Груня Ефимовна Сухарева, [ˈɡrunʲə jɪˈfʲiməvnə ˈsuxɐrʲɪvə], alternative transliteration Suchareva) (11 November 1891 – 26 April 1981) was a Soviet child psychiatrist.

Photo of Maryna Poroshenko

6. Maryna Poroshenko (b. 1962)

With an HPI of 49.46, Maryna Poroshenko is the 6th most famous Ukrainian Physician.  Her biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Maryna Anatoliivna Poroshenko (Ukrainian: Марина Анатоліївна Порошенко, née Perevedentseva; born 1 February 1962) is a Ukrainian cardiologist who was the First Lady of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. She is married to former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. After her husband's presidency ended in 2019, Maryna was a local political candidate for elections in Kyiv.

Photo of Nikolay Gamaleya

7. Nikolay Gamaleya (1859 - 1949)

With an HPI of 49.16, Nikolay Gamaleya is the 7th most famous Ukrainian Physician.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Nikolay Fyodorovich Gamaleya (Russian: Никола́й Фёдорович Гамале́я; 17 February 1859 [O.S. 5 February] – 29 March 1949) was a Russian and Soviet physician and scientist who played a pioneering role in microbiology and vaccine research.

Photo of Łucja Frey

8. Łucja Frey (1889 - 1942)

With an HPI of 49.15, Łucja Frey is the 8th most famous Ukrainian Physician.  Her biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Łucja Frey or Łucja Frey-Gottesman (November 3, 1889, in Lwów – 1942?) was a Polish-Jewish physician and neurologist, known for describing the syndrome later named after her. She was one of the first female academic neurologists in Europe. Frey perished during the Holocaust in 1942 in Lwów ghetto aged 53.

Photo of Hélène Sparrow

9. Hélène Sparrow (1891 - 1970)

With an HPI of 47.99, Hélène Sparrow is the 9th most famous Ukrainian Physician.  Her biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Hélène Sparrow (5 June 1891 – 13 November 1970), was a Polish medical doctor and bacteriologist. She is best known for her work on the control of many epidemics including: typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, and smallpox. Throughout the 1920s, Sparrow worked with the Polish Armed Forces at the State Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw. While at the State Institute of Hygiene, she worked vigilantly to produce the first vaccine against typhus and ran several large-scale vaccination campaigns to control the spread of diphtheria and scarlet fever all along the eastern frontiers of Poland. In 1933, Sparrow began to study flea-borne and louse-borne rickettsia diseases in Tunis, where she became the head of her own department at the Pasteur Institute. In her later years, she expanded her studies to include Mexico and Guatemala. While in Mexico and Guatemala, Sparrow developed a protective vaccine against typhus. She contributed a great amount of research to the World Health Organization on relapsing fever specifically in Ethiopia.

Photo of Ben Klassen

10. Ben Klassen (1918 - 1993)

With an HPI of 42.67, Ben Klassen is the 10th most famous Ukrainian Physician.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Bernhardt "Ben" Klassen ((1918-02-20)February 20, 1918 (O.S. February 7, 1918) – (1993-08-06)August 6, 1993) was an American politician and white supremacist religious leader. He founded the Church of the Creator with the publication of his book Nature's Eternal Religion in 1973. Klassen was openly racist, antisemitic and anti-Christian and first popularized the term "Racial Holy War" within the White Power movement. Klassen was a Republican Florida state legislator, as well as a supporter of George Wallace's presidential campaign. In addition to his religious and political work, Klassen was an electrical engineer and he was also the inventor of a wall-mounted electric can-opener. Klassen held unorthodox views about dieting and health. He was a natural hygienist who opposed the germ theory of disease as well as conventional medicine and promoted a fruitarian, raw food diet.

People

Pantheon has 10 people classified as Ukrainian physicians born between 1801 and 1962. Of these 10, 1 (10.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Ukrainian physicians include Maryna Poroshenko. The most famous deceased Ukrainian physicians include Selman Waksman, Vladimir Dal, and Wilhelm Stekel. As of April 2024, 3 new Ukrainian physicians have been added to Pantheon including Grunya Sukhareva, Maryna Poroshenko, and Łucja Frey.

Living Ukrainian Physicians

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Deceased Ukrainian Physicians

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Newly Added Ukrainian Physicians (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Physicians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 9 most globally memorable Physicians since 1700.