MINNETONKA, Minnesota — The University of Minnesota is helping a Ukrainian medical student get training so she can return to her country and help with the war effort.

Lisa Ishchenko is in the United States for the first time—away from her family, away from her life as a medical student, away from the war that continues to ravage her home country of Ukraine every day.

“One of the largest children’s hospitals, not only in Ukraine but in the whole of Europe, was destroyed by Russian missiles,” Ishchenko said. “It’s terrible because I knew people who worked there and now many colleagues are injured. Some of them are dead.”

Ishchenko is doing a month-long surgical rotation at the University of Minnesota, where she is continuing her training as a trauma surgeon. She sent June on a rotation in Milwaukee.

“It will be very useful for me and for my future career to come here and gain experience that I can take back home,” she said.

During her stay here, Ishchenko lives with Dr. Greg Ekbom, a retired surgeon from Minnetonka who is very familiar with the conflict in Ukraine.

Ekbom founded LimbFit, a nonprofit that designs prosthetics for Ukrainian amputees and works closely with doctors there.

Ishchenko met Ekbom when he hired her as an interpreter.

“Lisa was very quiet and I think she was grieving the fact that she was going to be gone for two months. But we think this is important for Lisa, but also for her colleagues and the doctors that we work with,” Ekbom said.

Ekbom is planning another trip to Ukraine this year to have more prosthetics fitted. Ishchenko will be there.