He was one of the leaders of the Research Institute of Experimental Surgery, where Professor Alexander Vishnevsky performed the first Soviet open-heart operation in 1957.

While there is some speculation today that the film is a re-staging of the procedures, the experiments themselves were well documented, and resulted in Brukhonenko being posthumously awarded the prestigious Lenin Prize.

Brukhonenko received his secondary education in Saratov, later joining the medical faculty of Moscow State University.

He was drafted to serve in World War I in 1914,[2] witnessing numerous combat injuries while assigned to the active army as a junior physician.

Brukhonenko's work in creating the autojektor, an early heart-lung machine, was displayed in a series of experiments with canines in 1939.