The trip to Ukraine for May-June will be focused on the Ukraine National EMS Rally and Competition in Cherkasy, Ukraine May 30-June 2.  Host and Coordinator of this event will be ACEP Ukraine Liaison EM physician Dr. Vitaliy Krylyuk, who attended ACEP 2017 in Washington, DC with me in October.

It appears that we will also have two 1 day Pre Hospital Care Seminars in Chernivtsi and in Mohildiv-Podilski (Vinnitsa Oblast).  As well I will have time in Vinnitsa with many colleagues of over 20 years and 37 visits.  Especially surgeon Dr. Sergei Bolyukh, with whom I have had the joy of collaborating on many projects and sending of medical containers, etc.  He has now helped launch a Hospice in Vinnitsa, serving many with terminal illnesses.  The time in Mohildiv-Podilski is not just time lecturing at their Regional Hospital, but spending time (always too brief) with Archana and Ruslan Tkachuk, who have a wonderful Foster Home on the Moldovan border overlooking the Dnister River.  They are servant leaders who I love.

Returning for this trip will be Dr. Timothy Nunez of Vanderbilt Trauma Surgery.  Tim is a twice recipient of the Bronze Medal for Battlefield Surgery with the US Army, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.  He lectured in Ukraine in 2015, and it will be a joy to have him on our team again.  He will lecture at the national EMS Conference in Cherkasy on updated Trauma management and Battlefield Medicine.

Also returning to Ukraine will be my oldest daughter Heather, who was last in Ukraine at age 12 in 1997.  So roughly 20 years later, she is now an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner in the Vanderbilt Trauma Unit.  Heather is participating in teaching and promoting the new Stop Bleeding program in America, and will share it with our Ukraine colleagues as a newer Public Service Program, to supplement First Aid and First Responder skills.

Jon Huddy, of Charlotte, NC is architect/author of the premier book on ER design in America, in it’s second edition as of last year, entitled Emergency Department Design.

Jon will be joining us at the Conference in Cherkasy and lecturing on ER design.  He is allowing the text to be translated into Ukrainian language.  Timely, as Ukraine is considering new ER’s across the nation designed more in the style we have found optimal in the USA.

If you are reading this and interested in joining our team for this or future trips, please contact me at mobile phone 615-419-0428.

Brian R. McMurray, MD, FACEP, FACP

ACEP Ambassador to Ukraine