Ukrainian Surgeons visit Penn for Observership
The Penn Center for Global Health hosted Dr. Evhen Filonenko, MD from the Pirogov Vinnytsia Regional Clinical Hospital and Dr. Vlad Kozanchuk, MD from the Cherkasy Regional Clinical Hospital for a two week observership with Penn Orthopedic-Trauma and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery teams. Drs. Filonenko and Kozanchuk are orthopedic traumatologists that have been working with Penn since April 2022 to build surgical capacity across Ukraine in reconstructive orthoplastics and microsurgery.
The observership was capped by participation in Penn’s annual Flap Course, an internationally attended hands on surgical course focused on dissection of common and complex microsurgical flaps of the head and neck, trunk, extremities, hands and feet. Dr. Filonenko and Dr. Kozanchuk not only spent time in the operating room and the human tissue lab with their Penn colleagues but also spent time working with infectious disease specialists and the infection control team discussing strategies to treat and manage multidrug resistant infections and best practices in surveillance and monitoring.
The Center for Global Health developed a comprehensive effort to assist Ukrainian medical colleagues in treating and managing high velocity ballistic and blast injuries resulting from the war using a combination of virtual case consults and in country surgical training. The collective goal is to develop regional experts in advanced surgical techniques and build surgical capacity generally within Ukraine. This approach mirrors the overall global mission of Penn – to build local capacity so that the home country can be supported in providing the highest quality care for its citizens in country