Jacques Hacabort – the head of the department of reconstructive surgery at the New York Clinic (NYC Langone Health), together with the specialists of the National Rehabilitation Center UNBROKEN, performed a number of complex reconstructive interventions.
Jacques Hacabort adheres to a multidisciplinary approach in medicine and is a supporter of the so-called orthoplastic surgery. This is when one specialist has knowledge in several areas of surgery: orthopedic, plastic and peripheral nerves. This approach, according to a certain American doctor, makes it possible to help the patient in the best possible way, especially during very severe extensive injuries. Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines are currently receiving such injuries.
The American doctor is amazed at how quickly our doctors master new techniques in the conditions of war. “I really see an opportunity for Ukraine to become a leading country for the treatment of seriously injured patients. I see future innovators of medicine here,” he says.
During the visit, together with Lviv colleagues, the American surgeon operated on several defenders with severe mine-explosive injuries, in particular, peripheral nerves. He also performed a number of reconstructive microsurgical operations involving the transplantation of large tissue masses in order to save the patient’s limb from amputation. Such interventions last up to 15 hours, are painstaking and are considered one of the most difficult, since it is necessary to sew up vessels as thick as a hair.
He operated on Jacques Hacabort and civilian patients with complex oncology cases. This is not the first time Lviv doctors have collaborated with this top reconstructive surgeon. Recently, they went to see him for an internship in New York.
“We learned two new techniques from Jacques Hacabort. This is a functional restoration of the upper limbs and partially the face. We are constantly improving our skills, and currently we already use many advanced techniques in Ukraine,” says Hnat Gerych, head of the department of reconstructive surgery at the NEZLAMNI center.
And he adds that now not only they are studying, but also foreigners are studying with us. After all, there is currently no such number of complex combined traumas as in Ukraine anywhere in the world.