MERCY MISSION Missouri City couple recounts medical trip to the Ukraine

By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM

After more than a year, the war in Ukraine has perhaps receded in many Americans' minds, despite the ongoing destruction, loss of life, and the ensuing refugee crisis. But for one Missouri City couple, the war is all too present.

Dr. Burke Bradley and his wife, Amy Bradley, a nurse, recently returned from a weeks-long mission to a hospital in IvanoFrankivs, a city in western Ukraine, with the nonprofit organization Face the Future Foundation.

Founded in 1996 by Dr. Peter Adamson, a renowned plastic surgeon, Face the Future "addresses the urgent medical needs of young people in developing countries who require life-altering, reconstructive surgery to treat highly complex facial deformities caused by birth defects, trauma and cancerous tumors," according to the organization's website.

Most of the organization's missions take place in poverty-ravaged countries across the globe like Rwanda and Guatemala. The recent mission to Ukraine was the first to a country embroiled in warfare, said Burke Bradley. An anesthesiologist, Burke has practiced at Houston's Methodist Hospital for almost the entirety of his career. With a father who was a physi - cian, he said he always planned to go into medicine, graduating from Yale University with a degree in biology. He and Ann met when they were both at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. They married not long afterward, and have lived in Missouri City for about three decades.

Ann said when the Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, she was transfixed by the images on television.

"It was like something out of World War II," she said. She wondered how she could help the people affected by the war in a way beyond just donating money. For Burke's part, he said he had long been acquainted with the Face the Future organization through a colleague at Methodist Hospital who had been urging him to take part in its missions.

But as one of the hospital's lead anesthesiologists, it was difficult for him to commit to taking several weeks out his duties to go to another country.

But, Burke said, he is now in a place in his career where he has more control over his hours, without being constantly on call.

So when Face the Future began putting together a team to make its first venture to a war-torn country, he quickly decided to get on board.

The team was comprised of primarily of healthcare providers from Houston-area hospitals. The foundation partners with physicians in the host countries who evaluate prospective patients. The team spent several weeks conferring over Zoom calls, working on the treatment plans for when the team would eventually arrive in Ukraine.

Burke said that over his career he has developed a skill set that was particularly adapted for anesthetizing the patients they would be treating, whose facial injuries sometimes required having their mouths sewn all but shut.

When they arrived in early January, both Burke and Ann said they shocked by the condition of the hospital they found themselves working in, a Soviet-era relic that had few of the amenities found in modern Western hospitals. During the mission, the team stayed in a hotel that was adequate but not in any way luxurious, they said.

Once they arrived, they spent the first day at the hospital doing intake of the patients. The following day, they got to work, performing procedures on as many as 30 people per day. Most were soldiers who had been injured at the front lines of the war, although some were civilians, including women and children, who suffered similar injuries.

Burke said he was sur -

By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM

The Sugar Land Animal Shelter will be closed for the next four to six weeks after it was discovered that a dog recently taken in tested positive for distemper, a highly conta - gious disease.

In an unrelated development, the Sugar Land City Council last week approved an interlocal agreement with Fort Bend County for use of the county's animal surgical facilities for the spaying and neutering of animals by the shelter's staff vet- erinarian. In a news release, the City of Sugar Land said the shelter's newly hired veterinarian, Dr. Carolyn Bender, recommended the closure of the shelter to minimize exposure to distemper, treat affected animals and monitor the shelter's dog population.

Canine distemper cannot be transmitted to humans or cats, according to the release. Distemper is not related to rabies, Dawn Steph, the city's director of environmental and neighborhood services, told the