What to expect in Episode 20
Ep 20: Dr Yurii Cherednychenko | Undoing the work of war
A neurosurgeon at Mechnikov Hospital in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Dr Yurii Cherednychenko is a man of many firsts. The first aneurysm embolisation with detachable coils in Ukraine, the first stent-assisted coiling of a cerebral aneurysm, the first flow-diverter implantation, and so on. And on. In 2016, he carried out the first mechanical thrombectomy in Ukraine, giving a local football hero a second chance at life. In 2017 he was among the first Ukrainian doctors to work with the Angels Initiative and eventually the first to implement Angels checklists and recommendations throughout the stroke pathway.
As well as being personally responsible for one fifth of all mechanical thrombectomies carried out in the country, Dr Cherednychenko is Ukraine’s thrombectomy teacher. He designed the first educational course for interventional neuroradiologists in Ukraine in 2019, and created his own school for endovascular treatment.
Now, with the war zone less than 200 km away, he has treated the largest number of cases of head and neck vascular injuries in the world.
In an interview recorded in Maastricht in May 2026, Dr Yurii reflects on how life continues despite uncertainty about tomorrow, how music protects him from the effects of war, and the patient he cannot forget.
In this episode:
• The attack on his hospital in October 2024
• A city that lives and loves despite everything
• The link between combat trauma and stroke
• Pioneering new techniques with excellent results
• Bound by friendship and a ‘healthy fatalism’
• Music as a form of protection
• The dancer from the Kramatorsk railway station
• ‘You cannot save everyone, but you have to try’
Watch his story here:
War images are gut-wrenching storytellers. They can evoke an emotion in a second, speak for those who have been silenced by conflict, and issue a global call to see, believe and act.
The war in Ukraine has produced countless haunting images, from the anguish of sundered families to the tender homecomings of injured fighters. Neurosurgeon Dr Yurii Cherednychenko’s war images are different. They are of the rivulets and runnels made by contrast dye on an angiogram. They show the damage made by mine blast injuries and gunshot trauma, the trail of devastation left by mine fragments and shell splinters that have breached the skull at thousands of metres per second.
What is remarkable about these images, is that through brave and skillful intervention he can change the way these stories end.
The proximity of his hospital to the frontline has seen him become the world’s leading expert on combat trauma and stroke. It also exposes him and his team to constant danger, as happened on a Friday night in October two years ago, when a Russian missile hit his hospital . . .