Ukrainian doctors visit Chicago-area hospitals for advice to help them in war

Around a dining room table in Glen Ellyn, a cellphone alarm warns of an impending air raid in Ukraine.

While startling to some, three doctors - Nataliia Mizynets, Oleksandr Sarzhevskyi and Oleksandr Serhiienko - know the routine all too well as their homeland continues to be ravaged by a war with Russia.

The Ukrainian doctors visited the Chicago area last week to collaborate with medical professionals and learn techniques about blood storage, management and distribution that could save lives back home.

Staying with a host family, John and Marilyn Evrard of Glen Ellyn, provided a respite for the doctors. Even if that simply meant a peaceful meal or conversation with the couple that's hosted numerous international professionals through their volunteer work with the Council of International Programs.

Despite being thousands of miles from Ukraine, though, the doctors still couldn't escape the dread of artillery bombardments and drone attacks. Whether it was phone alarms or calls to family, the war remained with them.

"It's very difficult to be away from our families," Mizynets said. "We worry about them a lot. Especially taking into consideration the blackouts and interruptions with electricity.

"It is difficult to predict what will be tomorrow because there are very complicated situations," she said.

Building contacts

As three of the brighter medical minds in Ukraine, the doctors recognized the difficulty of being away at such a critical time. But they also knew the importance.

Mizynets is the head of the blood bank at Rivne Regional Clinical Hospital. Sarzhevskyi is the deputy director at Zaporizhzhia Regional Clinical Hospital. Serhiienko is the deputy director general for the Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center in Kyiv.

With casualties mounting and areas of Ukraine in a continual state of triage, their work is pivotal in the country's handling of blood storage, management and distribution.

"It will be very important to know how to calculate the need for blood and blood products to satisfy the necessity for that kind of assistance," Serhiienko said. "What we're learning here will be very useful in Ukraine."

Their schedule was jam-packed during a weeklong stay in the area.

They spent time with the American Red Cross and at the University of Chicago, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the University of Illinois-Chicago, Vitalant Laboratories in Rosemont, Elmhurst Hospital and the Versiti Blood Center in Aurora.

"We have established so many contacts, we expect to have a very fruitful experience upon our arrival back to Ukraine," Serhiienko said.

The hectic schedule wasn't easy for the doctors. An eight-hour time difference meant numerous phone calls home in the middle of the night, sometimes to talk to family and other times to help colleagues through a crisis.

Sarzhevskyi lives in the southeast Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia that's been particularly hard-hit by the war.

"There's never-ending shelling," he said. "Within the last few weeks, there's been a lot of shelling on residential areas. One of the missiles landed 50 meters from my house. There's been a lot of casualties among civilians."

Building friendships

While John and Marilyn Evrard have hosted people from around the world through their years of volunteering with CIP Chicago, this experience was unique.

"It's been eye-opening," John Evrard said. "They're very emotionally strong individuals and yet they're endlessly compassionate. They're really extraordinary people."

Despite a busy schedule, little sleep and constant worry, the doctors managed joyous moments while visiting museums and eating at steakhouses and pizza places. Friendly faces brought an additional sense of comfort.

"The best part of the city is the people," Sarzhevskyi said, "and in particular our Chicago colleagues who are very welcoming and share their experience."

On one of their final nights before returning to Ukraine, the doctors took a break from box lunches and restaurants to cook a traditional batch of borscht with the Evrard family.

Thousands of miles away, they never drifted far from home.

"What happened in Ukraine, nobody anticipated," Serhiienko said. "But we'll always love our homeland."