THE VOLUNTEERING AND CHARITY COMMITTEE

❤Love is the strong armywomen and armymen who stand at sub-zero temperatures saluting, shooting and shouting for their motherland; forced to fight over imaginary boundaries He never intended to make. Love is all the silent workers behind the scenes who sweep,arrange furniture, cook but never complain. Very often, we forget that these people are humans too. The barista serving coffee might have had a terrible exam the previous day; the lady sweeping could have just become a grandmother today. Do we talk to them? No. We pretend like they do not exist. Like they were born only to serve us! ❤Love is our dreams, hopes and ambitions. We see galaxies bursting with stars, the cosmos beckons to us but we love being tethered to the familiar. Home is a place. Home is a person. I say choose what suits you. Take whichever definition of love you truly believe in and make it your own. Where love is concerned, identities, personalities, societal expectations do not even stand to matter. It is all about the way you feel about them. Our hearts have only one purpose. Keeping us alive. Love strengthens your belief in that one organ. Bundle up your love and scatter the sparkles all around you.

❤Let the people who serve you get warm smiles and a grateful spirit. Let our soldiers know all the love and respect you have them by remembering a handful of those ones whose lives you now live. Let the nurses receive acknowledgment and sincere gratitude. Let the doctors know they tried their best and love them as humans who might make mistakes but are always determined to save lives. Let your parents know that you thrive only because they love and stand by you and that one day you will make them proud. Let your friend(s) know you love them and choose them everyday.

❤P.S. That one person you have securely locked in your heart, let your love for that person out too. They deserve to know how wholeheartedly they are being loved by you. All humans crave is the human touch. Souls look to belong together; you never know when two halves will perfectly fit to complete the puzzle. Keep loving and spread it around and the “World will live as one.

Love, Mihika

Words of wisdom

Professor Formanchuk Andriy Mykolayovych is an Associate Professor, Candidate of Medical Sciences and Associate Professor at VNMU at the Department of Surgery No1. We are very fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to talk to such a humble yet extremely talented teacher as well as surgeon this month. Professor Formanchuk is the founder of the isurge _ on education platform and has hosted various surgical workshops where he has brought to light new procedures and operations for International students.

1.How long have you been teaching at VNMU?

I graduated in 2007 and started practising and teaching from 2010. The first batch of students I taught were English speaking and knowing the language has always opened a lot of doors for me. 2.What are the surgeries that you witnessed while training ? While studying in Holland and Germany, I attended various complex surgeries in all areas be it abdominal surgery, wounds surgery, cancer surgery; by open, laparoscopic and robotic methods. I also passed practical masterclasses. 3. Tell us more about the isurge _ on platform founded by you. What does it include? The one major goal I had in mind was hands-on-training. Usually medical students do not get the clinical experience they should. I realised that we have always enough theory practise but no clinical skills like they had in European countries like Germany where I studied. We wanted a platform which is accessible to students as well as genuinely informative. Our platform provides cost effective learning as all of our seminars are free for all participants. In case registered medical practitioners require certificates for programs, we provide those as well at a nominal fee. We have partners from Germany, India as well as the UK and hope to expand more. We are now working on to organise laprascopic masterclass for students too. IStitch was a unique workshop we organised where we used surgical thread, staplers and adhesive tapes as modern original suture materials. These are innovative techniques which are great and easy but sadly not popular at learning here. Electrocautering was another really interesting method we gave our students to try which is the thing of daily surgery nowadays at modern medicine. 4.Being an International magazine we have to ask what are some of the programs that you have organized which focus on International students? I equally love and adore both my International and Ukrainian students. We have brilliant minds who are capable of great things if only given the correct training. The sessions we organise with foreign doctors can be attended by anyone. They can type their questions on private chats or ask questions on video call. In fact, isurge _ on is more focused on bringing international learning to all our students. We would love students to go to our platform and write down any suggestions for programs you wish to attend. We are always open for cooperation!