Written by Susan Ketigian, a HTCNE volunteer RN, May 2025:

The goal of the HTCNE missions to Ukraine is to teach the Ukrainian surgeons how to do very complex surgeries. I think all but one of our patients was a soldier. There is no shortage of patients to help. This will go on for years. Generations to come are effected by this senseless war.

Along with the surgeons at the military hospital, the OR nurses need to learn the procedures as well. As I was looking for the OR nurses in the hospital to organize the training, one of the local surgeons told me an OR nurse is like gold. Very precious. Unfortunately, many of the OR nurses were deployed to the east and there was no one available to learn. Fortunately, I had enough nurses and techs to run 3 ORs efficiently and we were able to complete all the cases.

The work week was very busy to say the least. All of the patients were screened ahead of time via zoom calls with the local doctors to see who would be a good teaching case for reconstructing faces/ eyes/ lips. Very extreme and disfiguring injuries. We left for the hospital at 7am everyday. We operated in three rooms, 2 of the 3 are very long cases so the number of cases is lower but the amount of work hours is high. Thursday morning, my morning alarm went off and there was an air raid. I had to get dressed quickly and take the stairs to the shelter in the basement of the hotel. A basement room with no windows is considered to be a shelter. Once it was cleared we were able to depart for the hospital.

Our host organization is Razom, (means the word together in Ukrainian), an American-Ukrainian organization and they make this a 5 Star mission. They take very good care of us.

Although there is a war going on, the Ukrainians continue to laugh, dance, children play in the park, the restaurants are busy. They are resilient.

So much healing needs to take place. I hope the war ends soon.

Slava Ukraini!