Violence, separation from families and hunger are a few of the devastating and ongoing effects on the Ukrainian people of the war with Russia. But the war’s disruption to medical care has also wreaked havoc on what used to be a burgeoning and rapidly developing country. Cancers often go untreated and surgeries are delayed because of the scarcity of medical resources.
A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to bring a talented group of surgeon friends from Chicago and Boston to Ukraine to assist in addressing some of the surgeries delayed by the war.
Our stated goal was help our Ukrainian colleagues, many of whom I have worked with for years on quality improvement projects, by tackling complex cases and to share our different approaches and techniques. We also strived to do our work there without leaving a noticeable footprint, so we brought our own equipment and supplies and donated surgical instruments and gear that could be used in Ukraine for years to come.
At the outset of the trip, one of the Ukrainian surgeons asked us: “Why did you come? I would not have gone to a war zone.” It’s an obvious question, one that our American team has been discussing since we came back. We did a number of complex cancer and reconstructive procedures, some of which would likely have gone undone otherwise, but 22 surgical cases and the supplies donated are a drop in the bucket for a country of 44 million.
A wise member of our team, plastic surgeon Dr. Don Morris, told our group: “I hope we did something good for the Ukrainians, but this was also very meaningful to me.”
A fair introspection asks if we were actually acting as disaster tourists, given the disproportion between the need in Ukraine and what we could offer. Would we have better served our Ukrainian colleagues by shipping money and supplies over? After all, our physician friends were able to remain strong, telling us in a matter-of-fact fashion about living in hospital basements for months and rigging magnets to find shrapnel in civilian’s wounds. Committed to their duty, even many of those who could have left did not.
Yet, the sadness in their eyes when recounting months of being separated from their families, or visiting their homes in Irpin and Bucha for the first time after liberation, would get a little less pronounced when we started talking about surgical cases we had just finished.
When our team discussed things after our trip, we accepted our colleague Don’s wise words — the trip did make us feel better. But we felt good about it because by stepping away from our busy academic careers, we were able to do exactly the things that got us into surgery in the first place — work with our colleagues, regardless of their country or allegiances, and do some good for patients in whose eyes we could see deep sadness.
At the end of the day, we did it because our friends and Ukrainian colleagues asked us to help.
When I called the surgeon from Kyiv who wondered why we came during a war and told him about the conversation our team had, he said he and his friends had also discussed it and came to the same conclusion. Our sharing in their experiences of the war and supporting them in performing their primary duties as doctors was worth more to them then any packages we could send. He also told me that if we would ever ask or be in need, he would be there for us.
The day we left Kyiv, Russian missiles landed near the hospitals where we worked. As this war drags on yet slowly disappears from our TV screens, I know one way I can help is to be there for my colleagues when they ask.
What we can all do is to remember that this war is still very much alive and that the asks of the Ukrainian people should not be forgotten by any of us.
Vitaliy Poylin, MD, MBA, FACS, FASCRS, is associate professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and director, section of colon and rectal surgery at Northwestern Medical Group.
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