Mikhail Shraiber
Mikhail Shraiber was born in 1910 in the town of Soltovo in Vinnitsa Oblast, in the family of a craftsman. Under Soviet rule, he completed a 7-year school, and later a school for paramedics. He then enrolled in a medical institute in Rostov-on-Don, graduating from it in 1932 with a specialization in surgery.
Shraiber was assigned to a small town in Kyrgyzstan, where he worked as the administrator of a regional hospital. After working for the two-year term mandated by Soviet law, Mikhail moved to the town of Krasny Sulin in Rostov Oblast, where he became resident at a local hospital. In 1935, Mikhail Shraiber began to work as resident at the hospital surgery clinic of the Medical Institute of Rostov-on-Don.
In 1938, Mikhail Shraiber was recruited into the Red Army and dispatched to Mongolia, where he served as head of the surgery ward of a military hospital. At the time, Soviet troops became involved in a conflict between Mongolia and Japan, and Shraiber acquired extensive experience in the treatment of war wounds. From then on, his professional activity would focus on burns.
In summer 1940, Shraiber began to teach at the Kirov Military Medical Academy in Leningrad. On the very eve of the Soviet-German War, he was able to defend his candidate's thesis.
From the first days of the war, Shraiber served as chief surgeon, first in the 4th Army, and then, after its dissolution, in the 2nd Shock Army.
In the course of the war, Shraiber was awarded the Order of the Red Banner; the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st and 2nd Class; three Orders of the Red Star, and several medals.
After the end of the war, Mikhail Shraiber was sent to the Arkhangelsk Military District. In 1955, he was transferred to the South Ural Military District. Afterward, he moved to Moscow for good. At various times, Shraiber taught medicine and served as Deputy Surgeon General of the Soviet Ministry of Defense.
In 1960, Shraiber was appointed head of the burn center at the Vishnevsky Surgical Institute, a post that he would hold for many years.
In 1962, he became a professor; a year later, he was promoted to Major General of the Medical Service.
Mikhail Shraiber died in Moscow in 1982.
