London, Ont. doctor returns from helping wounded Ukrainian soldiers

Dr. Ivanka Nebor, a clinical fellow at Schulich School of Medicine, just returned from her second trip to Ukraine where she was part of a group providing reconstructive plastic surgery to wounded soldiers.

"We started to work on this because it's a really important project and this project involves not only treatment that we give to patients, but it also involves some training for Ukrainian surgeons,” said Nebor. “So, they will be more comfortable to do complex reconstructive surgery of the face after relief."

The project hits home for Nebor. She was born and trained in Kyiv before leaving for North America. When the invasion began, it was shocking because she didn't believe it would happen.

But shock turned to resolve and she figured out how she could use her training to help.

"It’s a small piece of my work that can help, you know, people of my country and also can give some hope to people there," she said.

The work Nebor and her colleagues are doing mainly focuses on facial reconstructive surgery

"It’s all like facial injury for head and neck injuries technically. Scars on the face. It's absence of some bone on the, or of the, head. For example, like the jaw or a completely absent nose,” said Nebor.

With two trips completed, Nebor is looking to coordinate a third trip in the fall to follow up with patients and help others.

"Unfortunately, the number of injuries, it's on the rise right now and a lot of those patients that we have in September or this time in April, they need a second stage. Some of them will need a third stage of the surgery," she added.

According to Nebor, one of the most difficult parts of this work and this situation is controlling your emotions.

“It's obviously very hard to see these injuries, but on another side, I understand if I'm going to just do my work and help them and kind of like organize the work also for my colleagues — it's going to help them so for sure. I kind of like trying to put my emotion on the second level and just do my job.”

The project is a collaboration between the American Academy of Facial reconstructive Plastic Surgery, Razom for Ukraine and a Ukrainian medical organization called Ingenious.