{"id":175337,"date":"2026-02-22T11:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T11:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/175337\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T11:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T11:19:09","slug":"ukraine-army-doctors-visit-san-antonio-on-medical-exchange-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/175337\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine army doctors visit San Antonio on medical exchange trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian trauma surgeons and combat medics have accumulated a trove of \u201cunfortunate expertise\u201d in treating complex battlefield injuries since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, two such experts \u2014 Dr. Yuriy Yarmolyuk, the chief traumatologist of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and Dr. Valentyn Rohozynskyi with the National Military Medical Clinical Center in Ukraine \u2014 visited San Antonio as part of a medical exchange program to share their experiences with local surgeons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re not in the medical field, this may sound harsh or almost brutal, [but] war is the time when medicine gets better, because of the amount of human suffering and the concentration of injuries,\u201d said Dr. Andriy Batchinsky, a Ukraine native and military medicine researcher based in San Antonio. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for visits like this, we would not have the communication [and] direct interaction with the physicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are several ways that the physicians are learning from one another. While the Ukrainian doctors have taken medical devices and knowledge from American plastic surgeons on facial reconstruction back to the front lines, U.S. doctors \u2014 both military and civilian \u2014 are taking notes on the surgical adaptations made under dire circumstances during the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about solutions we have for their problems, they talk about adaptations that previously didn\u2019t exist,\u201d said Dr. Joseph Alderete, an orthopedic surgeon, Army veteran and director of a limb salvage and amputee care laboratory at UT Health San Antonio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat may be an \u2018aha\u2019 moment for us: Knowledge transfer is so important in dealing with battlefield injury, [but] everything I did on the battlefield, I can translate into an I-10 disaster here,\u201d Alderete explained.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian physicians gave presentations and mingled with local health care providers at the Tuesday night event. The medical exchange program, known as Co-Pilot, is run by Razom for Ukraine<\/a>, a humanitarian and advocacy organization that has raised over $200 million in aid for Ukraine since 2022, according to its website.<\/p>\n

\"\"Razom for Ukraine held a private reception for local medical professionals and international military physicians to talk about frontline trauma care in Ukraine on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

This was the Co-Pilot program\u2019s first stop in Military City USA, home to the Brooke Army Medical Center<\/a>, the U.S. Army\u2019s leading medical institution and one of two level 1 trauma centers in the city.<\/p>\n

Learning curve<\/p>\n

Since Russia\u2019s invasion, Ukrainian forces have suffered roughly half a million casualties, which includes killed, wounded and missing, according to an estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Russian forces have struck Ukrainian hospitals and medical facilities throughout the four-year war, as well as the country\u2019s power grid. At the same time, there isa severe demand for medical providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a shortage of people at hospitals, of everybody: surgeons, all medical staff, registered nurses,\u201d said Yuliia Shama, Co-Pilot\u2019s project manager. \u201cPeople evacuated because they don\u2019t want their kids to live under constant bombing. We have a shortage of \u2026 also, hospital infrastructure. In Kyiv, the main kid\u2019s hospital was hit by a missile directly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we don\u2019t have infrastructure, no electricity, no heating, no people, but still everybody is trying to do their best work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Yuliia Shama, project manager of Co-Pilot at Razom for Ukraine, speaks about the challenges of coordinating doctors and medical help in war-ravaged Ukraine during the event. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

Razom for Ukraine organizes about 150 international medical trips to Ukraine every year, bringing physicians from around the world to near the front lines of the battlefield.<\/p>\n

\u2018Horribly difficult\u2019<\/p>\n

On top of the infrastructure and medical personnel challenges, the advent of drone warfare<\/a> in the conflict has led to a plethora of \u201chorribly difficult, complex surgeries,\u201d said Alexandra Domaradsky, a project coordinator with Co-Pilot.<\/p>\n

As Morrison and other doctors who served in the Middle East explained, the last four years of the Russo-Ukrainian War has rewritten the rules<\/a> of battlefield surgery and emergency care that Western forces have become accustomed to.<\/p>\n

In Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, the U.S. and allies operated highly organized, quick-acting trauma care systems made possible by controlling those airspaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur conventional ideas \u2026 may run into problems with the advent of drones, and the use of drone warfare requires any military to ascend the learning curve,\u201d said Jonny Morrison, a vascular surgeon who has volunteered in Ukraine. \u201cAnd the Russians are going up that learning curve as we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrison is a British Army veteran who was stationed in San Antonio for two years and now lives in Boston. He has been to Ukraine twice, performing surgeries as close as 50 miles from the fighting.<\/p>\n

\"\"Alexandra Domaradsky, project coordinator with Co-Pilot, speaks about Razom for Ukraine during the event at Luce Ristorante E Enoteca. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could evacuate anyone, at will, as fast as in 30 minutes\u00a0\u2014 faster than you can bring sometimes a trauma patient from an accident on I-35 to University Hospital,\u201d added Batchinsky, who didn\u2019t serve directly but who previously worked with the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research.<\/p>\n

In Ukraine, explosive-rigged drones used by both countries make airspace control largely impossible. As a result, injured troopsare going without intensive care for dozens of hours to several days. \u201cNobody will rescue you during the day, because all rescue missions will just be killed immediately,\u201d Shama said.<\/p>\n

According to Shama, Ukraine has started training more troops in advanced combat medicine as a result, so that frontline personnel can have a better chance of survival after being wounded when combat medics can\u2019t reach them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see how people drive in San Antonio, we have plenty of trauma on the roads,\u201d said Szeremeta, the ENT surgeon at University Hospital. \u201cIt has applications for how we do surgery, how we deliver health care, how we use antibiotics. We have the potential here to learn a lot from what\u2019s happened, and those are huge applications. It\u2019d be sinful to waste the memory of all those people who gave their lives and not be able to use that knowledge to help people all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian trauma surgeons and combat medics have accumulated a trove of \u201cunfortunate expertise\u201d in treating complex battlefield injuries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[70729,41743,70730,70731,7424,70732,82,84,70733,83,92,3028,10487,70734,70735,70736,70737],"class_list":{"0":"post-175337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-andiry-batchinsky","9":"tag-brooke-army-medical-center","10":"tag-joe-alderete","11":"tag-jonny-morrison","12":"tag-military-city-usa","13":"tag-razom-for-ukraine","14":"tag-san-antonio","15":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","16":"tag-san-antonio-military-medical-center","17":"tag-san-antonio-news","18":"tag-top-story","19":"tag-typedaily","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-valentyn-rohozynskyi","22":"tag-war-in-ukraine","23":"tag-yuliia-shama","24":"tag-yuriy-yarmolyuk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}