U.S. surgeon helps rebuild faces of wounded Ukrainian soldiers

[00:00:00]I'm a facial plastic surgeon and over here doing facial reconstructive surgery.

[00:00:05]Uh this is my 11th time to Ukraine, 13th mission in the last 3 and 1/2 years. So, been here a lot.

[00:00:14]I don't think about the risks when I walked outside and heard the for the first time actually the familiar sound of of Shaheeds, it just reminded you me that it's a very real war that's going on because so often we see the injuries here, we know there's a war, but we go outside and everything seems normal and then something like that happens that it makes you realize it's it's for real.

[00:00:45]>> A group of American plastic surgeons came to Ukraine in March to perform complex operations on Ukrainian soldiers who suffered permanent facial injuries on the battlefield.

[00:00:54]The visit was part of a larger mission called Face to Face launched in 2022 to connect Ukraine's growing wartime needs with American surgical expertise. We joined the mission at a Ukraine hospital to see how this effort is giving new hope to soldiers who made enormous sacrifices defending Ukraine.