Ukrainian Fellows of the Harvard Scholars at Risk (SAR) Program Speak about Healthcare Challenges in Ukraine as War Continues

FEBRUARY 10TH, 2023, BOSTON, MA.

HOSTED BY: THE HARVARD SAR PROGRAM, HUG, AND GMKA, IN COLLABORATION WITH HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL AFFILIATED PHYSICIANS AND SCIENTISTS.

Ukrainian clinicians participating in the SAR program at MGH and BWH currently, discuss their work in healthcare in Ukraine, the needs of the country’s healthcare system and ongoing challenges.

Panel of Visiting Scholars:
Sofiya Hrechukh, MD Psychiatry; Lviv; BWH
Vadym Vus, MD Family Medicine; Rivne Oblast; MGH
Ali Dzhemiliev, MD General Surgery; Crimea/Kyiv; BWH
Veronika Patsko, MD Oncology; Kyiv; MGH

Moderators:
Mark C. Poznansky, MD, PhD
Director, Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center, MGH; HUG Co-Founder; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Nelya Melnitchouk, MD, MsC
Colorectal Surgeon, BWH; Assistant Professor of Surgery, HMS;
President and Co-Founder, Global Medical Knowledge Alliance

gmka.org/
harvardscholarsatrisk.harvard.edu/
healukrainegroup.org/

Amid a ‘huge collective trauma,’ a Harvard program aims to train Ukrainian doctors

CAMBRIDGE — Dr. Dariia Simchuk flips through photos and videos on her phone of her hometown, Zhytomyr, about 85 miles west of Kyiv. They are vignettes of a country at war: buildings reduced to gray piles of rubble; windows of a hospital blown out by nearby explosions and patched up with plywood; an operating room with sandbags stacked in it for extra protection in case of an attack. “It is a huge, collective trauma for all Ukrainians,” she said of the ongoing conflict while seated in a cafe amid the Monday morning bustle of Harvard Square.

FASEB Journal publication from VIC’s Dr. Susan Raju Paul

Susan Raju Paul MBBS, researcher at VIC, recently published results of an in-depth analysis of the tumor microenvironment (TME) using a small cohort of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common histopathological variant of lung cancer. Results of the pilot study support the use of a patient’s unique TME and immune subpopulations as prognostic indicators for selection of appropriate treatment for improving patient health care outcomes. Future research lies in validating these findings with a larger cohort in effort to better characterize and understand expression of immune markers and subtypes of NSCLC and implications for treatment.

NY Times Opinion Piece from Dr. Michael Callahan:

Dr. Michael Callahan is a Staff Physician at MGH in internal medicine and infectious disease and the Director of clinical translational research at VIC. Since 2002, Dr. Callahan has investigated disease outbreaks in Asia. He recently published a piece in the NY Times covering the implications of China’s end to their zero COVID policy and how the U.S. could indirectly help the country avoid COVID catastrophe.