The Pediatric Expert Exchange Program (PEEP), part of the Ukraine Children’s Action Project (UCAP), led by Sofya Maslyanskaya, MD, Attending Physician, Adolescent Medicine, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Einstein (CHAM), and Associate Professor, Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, engaged doctors from Saint Nicolaus Children’s Hospital (SNH) in Lviv, Ukraine, to exchange expertise, share support and bolster specialty pediatric services.
United by a shared mission to provide all children with exceptional care, CHAM and SNH work together to assist families caught in the throes of the crisis in Ukraine.
Five million Ukrainian children—two-thirds of the population under 15 years old—have been displaced from the country’s war-torn east to other areas with historically less-developed pediatric subspeciality infrastructure and resources. This has dramatically increased the need for pediatric specialty care in western Ukraine at facilities like SNH.
The departments of ophthalmology, neurology and orthopedics hosted the visiting physicians and served as the key points of clinical coordination.
“When the war in Ukraine started, I was deeply emotionally affected,” Dr. Maslyanskaya said. “When the opportunity came up to coordinate this project, I jumped at the chance. As a refugee and an immigrant, I felt it was really important for me to give back, now that I’m in a place and a role where I have the ability to be supportive.”
Leaders from SNH in Ukraine defined the program’s focus areas based on their greatest needs—kidney transplantation, thyroid disorders, epilepsy, surgical subspecialties and rehabilitative medicine. The exchange also gave doctors at CHAM an opportunity to learn from their Ukrainian counterparts’ subspecialty expertise in their differing surgical techniques. The exchange program included two major elements: virtual meetings of physicians discussing specific aspects of specialty care, and monthlong observerships on-site at CHAM for the four doctors from SNH. Dr. Marianna Onysyk, Pediatric Ophthalmologist, and Dr. Yulianna Halii, Neurophysiologist, Saint Nicolaus Children’s Hospital, completed the program in July, with Maryan Orach, MD, Orthopedic Surgeon, Saint Nicolaus Children’s Hospital, and Zoryana Ivanyuk, MD, Medical Director and Neonatologist, Saint Nicolaus Hospital, following in August with a visit focused mainly on strategic planning and hospital workflows, with emphasis on the groundbreaking multidisciplinary care model that enables CHAM physicians to provide complete, collaborative pediatric care with operational efficiency.
PEEP was generously funded through Ukraine Children’s Action Project, an organization co-founded by Irwin E. Redlener, MD, Clinical Professor, Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and his wife, Karen Redlener. UCAP developed the program for St. Nicolaus Hospital, proposing CHAM as the U.S. partner because of Dr. Redlener’s long-time association with the children’s hospital. The Redleners have traveled to Ukraine six times to establish local partnerships and personally vet the projects UCAP develops and supports.
