UH doctors to travel to Ukraine to help provide vital surgeries

The group of UH doctors, who will also provide training for their counterparts, leave for Ukraine on Friday.

PARMA, Ohio — Three University Hospitals (UH) surgeons who specialize in urology, along with a resident doctor, are gearing up to travel to Ukraine to provide surgeries and treatments for patients there, as well as help train their Ukrainian counterparts.

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Dr. Laura Bukavina was born in Ukraine, where she lived before coming to the United States. Since the war broke out, her colleagues tell 3News she’s been making trips to help her home country.

Now, two reconstructive urologists, Dr. Shubham Gupta and Dr. Kirtishri Mishra, will join her, preparing to perform surgeries and procedures on those impacted by war, as well as people with longstanding health issues who have yet to receive treatment.

“We knew that it was so meaningful to her, and certainly to us, too,” said Dr. Mishra of colleague Dr. Bukavina’s commitment to supporting Ukraine. “And being involved in an effort like this is very rewarding for us as providers because at the essence of this, this is kind of what medicine’s supposed to be, being able to heal and being able to offer cures to various things that otherwise these patients would be living with.”

Dr. Mishra said he is anticipating seeing patients with abdominal injuries and fractured pelvises. Dr. Gupta said while many of their patients are civilians and military personnel injured in the war, others are refugees from the Eastern part of the country who are also seeking medical treatment for longstanding issues.

“If Dr. Mishra and I don’t do reconstructive surgeries on patients here, they’ll probably get done next month, they’ll probably get done by someone else,” said Dr. Gupta, who is also the division chief of reconstructive urology. “But it’s not going to get done in Ukraine, so it was definitely something all of us felt very strongly about.”

Dr. Gupta said over the past six weeks, their team has been meeting virtually with the doctors in Ukraine to discuss cases and get patients ready for their upcoming surgeries. The doctors say the goal is to see between 20 and 30 patients over the course of six days of surgeries.

Dr. Mishra said the roughly week-long trip will be challenging, but he’s grateful to have his colleagues with him.

“As providers here, we are fortunate that we have access to amazing staff and resources,” he said. “We are expecting to not have a lot of those things, and really be innovative with how we try to do some of these surgeries and really hopefully be able to provide the same caliber and quality of surgery that we do here.”

Both doctors said that while their Ukrainian counterparts are talented and skilled, their particular field of reconstructive urology is a fairly new one that not everyone is trained in. They’re hoping that they can also use this trip to help train and teach their Ukrainian counterparts in this field as well.

“The goal is that we can go there and at least impart some of the more straightforward repairs for the pelvic fractures and so on, so those gifted surgeons there can kind of have some idea of that as well, and hopefully be able to offer it to the patients,” said Dr. Mishra.

In addition to the doctors, an ambulance donated by colleagues at UH and filled with hundreds of pounds of medical supplies donated by MedWish is also making the trip to Ukraine. The doctors are hoping to leave some of the supplies at the hospitals they’ll be visiting, while sending the rest, and the ambulance, to the eastern part of the country.

Dr. Bukavina was in surgery on Tuesday afternoon when 3News stopped by the UH Parma Medical Center, so unfortunately 3News was not able to interview her.

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