What injuries do ophthalmologists face most often in the military: Professor Rykov answers
Kyiv • UNN
90% of surgeries in the military involve combined head injuries. Treatment and rehabilitation of such injuries can take decades and require a multidisciplinary approach.
Ophthalmologist, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Serhiy Rykov told UNN that 90% of the operations performed by the military are related to combined head injuries.
"Among all the surgeries performed on military personnel, there are very few isolated ones, i.e. purely eye injuries, about 10%, and 90% are combined head injuries. And here we work together with maxillofacial surgeons, neurosurgeons, and ENT specialists, i.e. a multidisciplinary approach. We do this in many clinics, including the regional hospital (in Kyiv - ed.) together with the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and the Department of Ophthalmology (Department of Ophthalmology and Optometry of Postgraduate Education of the Bogomolets National Medical University - ed.) We have a common work, Professor Oksana Petrenko works very hard and Professor Dmytro Zhmuryk, we have wonderful young people," Rykov said.
He noted that the main thing in such operations is reconstruction.
"What we're doing now is a decade-long job, because we're doing a certain stage, it won't end in a week, a month, because there are reparative problems, scarring, then plastic surgery. We need to bring the face to a cosmetic appearance, and this is a decade. We are actually operating now and there is no problem to operate," Rykov said.
According to him, the problem will be in the rehabilitation of these patients, because special hospitals are needed, and a multidisciplinary approach is needed.
"Because a patient like in America gets to a hospital, there is even an optometrist there to fit them with glasses, because a shell-shocked person is completely different, a different approach is needed. That is, we need such hospitals with a multidisciplinary approach after the war," Rykov said.
