That was 32 trips ago. Having spent well over a year of my life in all areas of Ukraine, I can say that it is indeed my second home. Their emergency physicians ride on ambulances. They don’t work in the hospital as we do. What a fascination it has been to ride in ambulances with their doctors in cities across their nation. On one such ambulance run, the patient was a former Soviet army general with chest pain. He had never had an American in his home. He formerly commanded an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile facility where the missiles were all aimed at America. By the end of the visit we hugged. It’s a true joy to break down walls.

Medical collaboration over these 18 years has taken on many forms: the honor of speaking at Pirogov Medical University in 1996 on HIV emergencies; collaboration with that university and with teams of other American or Canadian doctors on educational programs; sponsoring Ukrainians needing heart surgery as their nation’s heart surgeons developed greater expertise; launching a program in 1998 for the use of high-dose ACE inhibitors for systolic heart failure; bringing Ukrainian doctors to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where they were welcomed by the dean and Department of Emergency Medicine; hosting Dr. Georgiy Roshchin of Ukraine’s Disaster Medicine Program in Denver at ACEP 2012; working with churches that run drug and alcohol rehab centers; assisting doctors and nurses in providing care at desolate orphanages; and sending more than 20 containers full of medical supplies and equipment to Ukraine through Project C.U.R.E. of Denver and Nashville. Well, you get the idea—this has been my passion.

Many in Ukraine resist the notion of becoming a modern-day version of a Soviet republic…Regardless of what else might happen, we should all hope and pray that Ukraine achieves true freedom and finds true servant leaders.

During the last several trips, it has been a treat to travel far and wide in Ukraine with a new friend, Vitaliy Krylyuk, MD, the chair of the Ukraine Resuscitation Society. Vitaliy ushered us from city to city across Ukraine as we presented “Highlights of ACLS, PALS, NALS, and ATLS.” The last trip in September 2013 took us from Kyiv to Ternopil, Lviv, Vinnytsa, Mohyliv-Podilskyi, and finally to Sudak in Crimea. Joining me were Sergei; our translator, Ruslan Tkachuk (who, along with his wife, runs a foster home in Nemia, Ukraine, on the Moldovan border); and American doctors Michelle Sergel, MD, of Cook County Chicago, Shannon Langston, MD, of Vanderbilt EM and a former international fellow there, and Mark McLean, MD, a fellow TeamHealth leader of Maury Regional EM in Columbia, Tenn (see photo). All of us have been in agony watching the recent events unfold, especially since we were so recently traveling through Crimea.