Boris Vasilyevich Petrovsky (Russian: Борис Васильевич Петровский; 27 June 1908 – 4 May 2004) was a Soviet and Russian general surgeon who was the health minister of the Soviet Union in the period 1965–1980.

Petrovsky was born in Yessentuki on 27 June 1908.^[1] His parents were Vasily and Lydia Petrovsky.^[1] His father was a physician.^[2]

Petrovsky applied for the Medicine Faculty of Moscow University, but he was not accepted due to the restricted quota and was transferred to the Engineering Faculty of the same university.^[2] However, through the help of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Vladimir Lenin's widow, who was serving as the deputy education minister, Petrovsky managed to enroll to the Medicine Faculty^[2] and received a degree in medicine.^[3] In 1933 he became a research investigator at the Moscow Institute for Oncology where he received a PhD completing his thesis on the transfusion of blood and blood substitutes in oncology.^[3] His second thesis which was required to pursue an academic career was about his experience as a military surgeon during the wars with Finland and Germany.^[3]

Petrovsky served in the Red Army as a military surgeon during the wars with Finland in 1939-40 and during World War II with Germany.^[3] In 1945 he was appointed deputy director of the Research Institute for Experimental and Clinical Surgery where he extensively studied oesophageal surgery.^[3] In 1948 Petrovsky was promoted to the title of professor of general surgery at the Moscow State Medical Institute.^[3] In the period between 1949 and 1951 he worked at Budapest University as the chairman of hospital surgery and director of a surgery clinic.^[1] Then he was named chief surgeon at the Kremlin Hospital in Moscow.^[2] Next he was appointed chairman of surgery at the Moscow Medical Institute and in 1956 he was named the chairman of surgery at the Moscow State Medical Institute.^[3]

In 1965 Petrovsky carried out the first kidney transplant in the Soviet Union.^[3] In September of the same year he was appointed minister of health.^[4] When he was in office, he continued such operations and implemented more than thirty kidney transplants until 1968.^[5] During his term the Oath of a Soviet Physician began to be used in 1971 when it was accepted by the Supreme Soviet of which he was a member.^[3] On 23 May 1972 Petrovsky and US Secretary of State William P. Rogers signed a five-year agreement for a cooperative health program.^[6]

Petrovsky was also a member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences.^[1]

Petrovsky married Yekaterina Timofeyeva, a biologist-researcher at a university.^[2] They had a daughter, Marina, who was a physician.^[2]

Petrovsky died in Moscow on 4 May 2004 and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.^[7]