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A Ukrainian surgeon who usually works at a government trauma hospital came to Hamilton to learn more about techniques that could save the lives of victims of the brutal Russian invasion.
Dr. Maria Kuzeykiv arrived in Canada in October as part of Hamilton Health Sciences' ASSIST program, which brought seven doctors from Ukraine to train in treating severe war injuries.
The program was started in 2022 by Dr. Mark Pahuta, an orthopedic spine surgeon and assistant professor at McMaster University in Hamilton.
According to him, Paguta has Ukrainian roots and has family and friends in Ukraine.
“I wanted to be able to make some positive contribution to help the terrible situation that is going on there now and use my skills and training to help the Ukrainians,” Paguta said.
In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. A total of 14,534 civilians, including 745 children, have been killed since the war began, according to UN Human Rights figures released this month. US President Donald Trump and his government have recently been working on a plan to end the war, with Canada and other world leaders saying it “needs more work.”
But every day this affects more and more Ukrainians. At least, as recently as November 19th. 26 people died Almost 100 people were injured in a Russian drone and missile attack that hit residential buildings in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, according to Ukraine's interior minister.
“Surgeons are a very important human resource in Ukraine right now, and the hospital is having difficulty sending anyone here,” Paguta said.
“The key is to make it a rewarding and valuable experience so that they gain some transferable skills that they can actually come back to Ukraine and make an impact.”
Kuzeykiv will stay in Canada for six months, until April.
Wounded soldiers working in Ukraine
In Ukraine, Kuzeykiv works in a state trauma hospital, where he treats civilians and military personnel injured during the conflict.
“My main job now at the hospital where I am is caring for patients with gunshot and blast injuries, mostly blast injuries,” she said, referring to blast injuries.
Kuzeykiw said she sees “large wounds” where bone tissue is lost or leaves large skin defects. Some require multiple surgeries to recover.
“My main goal is to help [patients regain their] primal movements,” she said.
Back in Ukraine, Kuzeykiv hopes to use what she learned in Hamilton to help the wounded in Lviv.
“I really think I will improve my skills and implement everything they have in mind. [teaching] here because it’s really needed right now,” she said.
two-way training
On November 14, Paguta and Kuzeykiv, along with another surgeon, performed a special lower back surgery on a patient with an unstable pelvic fracture—Kuzeykiv's first. She said she was scared in the operating room but had “high expectations.”
“Sometimes I didn’t know what to do,” Kuzeykiw said. “Sometimes [colleagues] supported me during this operation because sometimes I didn't know how to use [the tools]”
During the surgery, doctors inserted several screws into the patient's lower back to connect her spine and pelvis, which Pahuta said they hoped would help relieve her pain.
The surgeons also used something called navigation, which allowed them to perform the operation in a minimally invasive way, which Kuzeykiw also learned about that day.
She said learning these techniques in Canada will help her when seeing patients in Lviv, a western Ukrainian city that Kuzeykiv said is “more peaceful” but also under attack from Russia.
Employment
Dr. Paul Klas, a trauma and hip and knee replacement surgeon at Hamilton Health Sciences, said Hamilton is a good place for Kuzeikiw to train.
“Hamilton Health Sciences, depending on the metric used, is probably the second busiest trauma center in Ontario and the top three in Canada,” he told CBC Hamilton.
“So we get a high volume of blunt orthopedic trauma.”
Klas said he hopes to continue working with Kuzeykivym.
“It was a lot of fun when the guys from Ukraine came and shared their experience, and were able to work together, providing care to patients with complex polytrauma,” he said.
However, Paguta noted that not only Ukrainian children study.
“Unfortunately, during war there is a lot of innovation, and in the news we constantly hear about new innovative ways to use drones and other technologies in war,” he said.
“The same thing happens in medicine and surgery. And so this is an opportunity for us to build bridges and connections with Ukrainian surgeons and learn from them.”
