I am a doctor! And I am Ukrainian!

I am a doctor! And I am Ukrainian!

I have often been asked how a doctor’s life has changed since the war started.

Life for doctors changed back in 2014, when we first saw casualties from conflict in our country. We cared for the wounded and also learned how to treat chronic pain syndromes associated with traumatic injuries. We also saw the huge psychological impact on young men after the first years of war. We have learned how to manage all these problems and we hoped for better times!

But what happened on 24 February of 2022 will stay in our hearts for a very long time. You can ask what change our lives and practice has seen in the last few days? There are the answers:

• We have learned how to safely deliver pregnant women who came to seek safety in shelters during shelling.
• We have learned how to treat wounded children (and to hide our tears while we do this).
• We have learned how to deliver urgent clinical care, e.g., surgery, and dialysis, during alarms and shelling.
• We have learned how to do surgery with windows protected with sand bags.
• We have learned to differentiate the sounds of air-raid sirens and our ambulances.
• We have learned to move resuscitation rooms to the basement of the hospital during alarms and shelling.
• We have learned to donate blood in massive amounts and how to conserve rare blood groups.
• We have learned how to remove marks left from rocket strikes from the roofs of our hospitals.

And this is not an entire list of what we have learned. We, the Doctors of Ukraine, will try and save as many lives as we can, and do our work to the highest possible standard, despite the difficulties we face. We will do this with open hearts and compassion.

And we will do this, because caring for patients is our job. And, of course such beautiful children are born in the underground during war!

• Read Dr. Dmytro Dmytriiev letter