“She’s a superhero,” is how Angels consultant Tamara Zabashta introduces Oleksandra Holod, a neurologist who at 28 heads up the stroke unit at Kamianets-Podilskyi City Hospital, a triple diamond hospital located in one of the first Angels Regions in Ukraine.
Kamianets-Podilskyi is, officially, one of the ‘seven wonders of Ukraine’, so designated for its architectural heritage, fairytale atmosphere, and large number of monuments crowded onto a rocky island in the embrace of the Smotrich River. It makes an attractive backdrop for Oleksandra’s pictures on Instagram. But when you swipe left, the more to admire her leaning-to-classical personal style, or catch another glimpse of a favourite red suit, you frequently land on a carousel of facts and research on topics ranging from fibromyalgia to headaches.
The balance between professional responsibilities and personal life remains ever elusive.
There’s also the fact that Oleksandra is a natural teacher. It was she who in 2023 initiated the creation of an Instagram account for the Ukrainian Stroke Medicine Society (UTIM) as a platform for sharing information about stroke, and then, with fellow young neurologists Iryna Sheredko and Yuliia Mykolaienko, launched a public educational project, kNOw_ STROKE.
She’s a highly effective speaker on quality monitoring, a topic that resonates with her love for statistics and analysis. She has created detailed step-by-step instructions to simplify the data submission process, and even Tamara has on occasion turned to Oleksandra for help with navigating RES-Q website updates.
“She is excellent at showing why quality monitoring is needed and how it helps,” Tamara says. “She’s an inspiration to people. When she’s on stage, everyone listens.”
It’s a kind of magic
Oleksandra was born in this beautiful city, which she loves. She left to study medicine in Lviv four hours away, dreamed for several years of becoming a surgeon, briefly considered quitting medicine altogether, and finally returned to Kamianets-Podilskyi as a newly-wed neurology resident at the same hospital where she now works.
Medicine had been her second choice – she’d hoped to parlay a love of chemistry into working in the cosmetics or perfume industries – and she became a neurologist through circumstance.
In 2021, residencies were rare even though she had graduated with honours, and, since there were two young doctors Holod in the family, her choice of specialisations was further restricted by having to find a pair of jobs in the same city.
But early on in her internship, Oleksandra watched a stroke patient make a remarkable recovery after treatment with thrombolysis. It was a moment that changed the patient’s life – and hers. Not many medical interventions produce such life-saving, symptom-reversing results, or can make you feel almost like a magician, she says.
Besides the potential for a dramatic recovery, what Oleksandra liked about stroke neurology was the teamwork – the satisfaction of each person knowing exactly what to do and professionals from many disciplines laboring together towards a common goal. But leading such a team isn’t easy when you’re still only in your twenties.
Oleksandra now fills the all-consuming role of managing a high-performing stroke center in the city’s primary municipal healthcare facility.
“It’s a lot of work, and a lot of patients,” she says.
The hospital director at Kamianets-Podilskyi City Hospital who put her in charge of the stroke unit is a believer in the power of young people to effect change, and presumably also in Oleksandra’s ability to succeed as a young leader.
Her active commitment to self-development and constant learning has helped Oleksandra earn the trust of her more seasoned colleagues, so decisions made by the team are ideally the result of knowledge combined with experience.
A motto helps her stay in touch with her goals – “If you want to make a change, start with small changes yourself.”
It’s still hard. “There are many challenges,” she says truthfully.
Tired with a lot of patients
For young neurologists in Ukraine, the establishment of UTIM in April 2022 has helped mitigate the difficulty of connecting with likeminded colleagues. It also gives them access to a professional network they can tap into for advice and support.
“If you have trouble and want to ask questions about a patient you can text or call colleagues in other cities and ask for feedback,” Oleksandra says. “It’s an inspiration when you’re tired with a lot of patients, to hear from people with different ideas.”
‘Tired with a lot of patients’ is a reality for many young specialists in wartime Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion four years ago, many specialists have been drafted into the military, and some have lost their lives. Others have moved abroad.
The result is a lot of young and weary superheroes flirting with burnout and punching above their weight.
It’s the reason why, when you ask Oleksandra what inspires her, the unexpected but also unsurprising answer is ‘rest’.
Weekends are opportunities for travel, photography and reading, spending time with her husband, a cardiologist and young poet, and “feeling his support”. After such a weekend of rest, she feels reinvigorated, with renewed energy for that most gruelling of tasks – choosing change, and leading the way to something better.
