OF visits Ukraine to assist in the medical war effort

On the 28th April 2024 Ryan O’Leary (K95-01) headed to Ukraine for 5 weeks at the request of the World Health Organisation following a plea from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health to help them establish European Trauma Course – a Europe-wide method for managing patients who have suffered major trauma.

He spent 4 weeks teaching ETC repeatedly, in order to identify Ukrainian doctors who could act as instructors. He ended up with 94 Ukrainians trained in ETC, and 12 Ukrainian full instructors, with several others well on their way to obtaining full instructor status. He will be returning at a later date to teach again and help embed ETC in the Ukrainian health system.

He says “I have never met such a patriotic group of people – this was a truly humbling and moving experience.”

He goes on to say “By way of background I’m a consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine in Hereford in the West Midlands, and also a helicopter emergency medical services and pre-hospital emergency medicine doctor with Midlands Air Ambulance Charity and West Midlands Ambulance Service MERIT.  I’ve held an interest in care of the trauma patient for many years – probably stemming from my time at the school on CCF Army camps being taught to manage bleeding limbs!