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Andrii Sirko, a neurosurgeon from Dnipro, has been performing neurosurgical operations for over 25 years. With great care, he not only works in the operating room, but also talks about his work and the patients who trust him with their lives.
“The most responsible thing in all surgical specialties is that the patient's life depends on you. When I operate, I realize that if I do something wrong, the patient can die. Therefore, at any stage of the operation, you need to maintain balance, confidence and calmness in order to perform the intervention slowly, delicately and save a person's life,” says Andrii Sirko.
“A person trusts you with their health. Besides, I know that the patient's loved ones are waiting outside the operating room door for you to come out and tell them that everything went perfectly, that everything will be fine.”
“Sometimes I realize that not only the patient's future may depend on my actions. For example, I operated on a woman who has no husband, very old parents, and her children are five and two years old. I understand that if there are complications during the operation, I am responsible not only for the patient but also for her children.”
The doctor performs 160 to 190 surgeries per year, including 4–5 levels of complexity.
“The important thing is that we try to do everything during the first intervention, which is why, if a patient has a skull defect, we try to close this defect. Accordingly, this way, a person will not need to undergo a second operation, and can begin the rehabilitation process immediately after discharge.”
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According to the doctor, the Ministry of Health is currently working to make highly specialized neurosurgical care more accessible for patients.
“Over the past two years, we have received two modern operating microscopes, which we could only dream of. They help us perform operations under high quality magnification. The world's leading clinics use such equipment. We have purchased a modern angiography complex to perform examinations of the brain and neck vessels. This is very right and important.”
“For ourselves, we have developed a tactic of surgeries that we call the ‘golden mean,’” says the doctor.
“Between aggressive and conservative, meaning that surgical intervention is performed in most cases under a modern microscope.”
This approach, firstly, reduces the incidence of purulent and septic complications, and, secondly, provides better results in terms of the patients' further quality of life.
“It is important not only that a person survives, but also that he or she has a quality life in the future and can return to work and studies. This is the mission — to return a person to a normal life.”
“A professor of medicine should be a practicing physician who knows the current research results, the problems he or she deals with, participates in the analysis of the material, and trains scientific personnel,” explains the doctor.
Andrii Sirko is a doctor of medicine, a professor who spends every day in the operating room. According to him, it is impossible to teach a surgeon from books and models. There must be constant practice.
“What has changed in Ukraine on the positive side is that the provision of medical neurosurgical care for diseases and injuries of the spine and spinal cord is developing very well. This is a progressive direction, and we are keeping up with European leaders in this area.”
Secondly, according to Andrii Sirko, the stroke program is working well.
“There are packages for thrombosis, and thanks to this program, many patients have started to undergo thrombectomy, i.e., to remove blood clots in the first hours after the stroke. In terms of the percentage of thrombectomies, Ukraine is developing every year.”
“What needs to be developed even more is help with traumatic brain injury and neurotraumatology. It is necessary to introduce more widely invasive monitoring of brain function, intracranial pressure, monitoring of cerebral perfusion pressure, brain oxygen saturation, brain temperature, because this monitoring is performed by 2-3 medical centers in Ukraine,” emphasizes the doctor.
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“The desire to do the best for the patient is very important, it is called empathy. We must always be humane. It is a difficult profession, difficult patients, but they all dream of living. Their families also dream that everything will be fine. We must try to find an approach to everyone. I always remind myself and my colleagues that we are not at a factory — we are not a stampede: done and gone. We are the ones who ‘pass’ through people's lives. Moreover, sometimes they depend on our actions. I believe that each of our patients has good luck and a happy fate.”