District doctors once enjoyed great trust from patients and earned it through their enthusiasm and dedication. One such doctor, Pyotr Nikolaevich Prokhorov, left a significant mark in the history of Russian medicine. Although at the age of 30 he had the opportunity to pursue a career at the Military Medical Academy, he chose to work in district hospitals.

In 1883, he became a district doctor in Yamburg (now Kingisepp) in the St. Petersburg province. The local hospital was a barrack with 10 beds, where various patients were housed together. Prokhorov was horrified to find leprosy patients among them and immediately ordered their transfer to another room. There were also many patients with syphilis, which was mainly transmitted through everyday contact, as little was known about its transmission at the time. Pyotr Nikolaevich began to create a new system of district healthcare.

He focused on prevention and accessibility of treatment for all. With his own funds, he opened reception offices in nearby villages, invited paramedics and midwives there, as well as his friends from the Military Medical Academy for consultations. New departments appeared in the Yamburg hospital: infectious, therapeutic, obstetric-gynecological, and surgical. By attracting doctors to the countryside, Prokhorov took care of their living conditions, building a residential house for them and creating a park.

Pyotr Prokhorov treated local residents for free. In 1894, he organized a settlement for lepers called "Steep Streams." Professor Vasily Gavrilovich Ushakov recalled him as an educated, observant, and inventive person who approached everything in a unique way. Prokhorov invented a simplified type of steam chamber and used it to set up a disinfection unit and heating for baths in his small district hospital.