Defence Medical Services surgeons train Ukrainian doctors
Leading military trauma surgeons from Defence Medical Services and the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine shared their skills with Ukrainian medical personnel.
Lieutenant Colonel James Baden, a specialist in reconstructive surgery following combat injury, led the UK team delivering training to six Ukrainian medical professionals. The Ukrainian cohort, a mix of military and civilians, underwent training in reconstructive surgery techniques.
The training was held in the Freeman Hospital and Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, where surgical operations could be observed in an NHS theatre.
Further training will be taking place at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM), based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where injured military personnel evacuated from overseas are treated.
Major General Tim Hodgetts CB CBE, UK Surgeon General and Chair of the Committee of Surgeon Generals in NATO, said:
Sharing medical skills and expertise amongst allies is the right thing to do. Both military and civilians injured in Ukraine have similar injury patterns, so sharing the expertise to enhance all patient outcomes equally is also right in this circumstance. Military and Civil collaboration is at the very heart of NATO’s new Medical Support Capstone Concept.
I am hugely impressed by the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Medical Services, their valour, and their dedication to saving lives in the most challenging of circumstances.
In an increasingly abstract world dominated by digital and technology innovation, we still need surgeons with exquisite practical skills to treat the complex and disfiguring wounds of physical combat.