Building Trauma Care Capacity: GMKA Partners with WHO to Deliver ATLS Training in Ukraine

Forty physicians from frontline regions strengthened the skills they rely on every day—under high-pressure, resource-limited conditions. They have returned to their hospitals applying these approaches with greater confidence and clarity. Seven participants also became certified instructors, ensuring this life-saving knowledge continues to spread across Ukraine.
 

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission, more than 41,000 civilians have been injured and over 15,000 killed during four years of full-scale war in Ukraine. Behind every casualty is a person—and a medical team working against the clock to save them. In this context, structured, standardized trauma training is essential to saving lives.

Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS®), developed by the American College of Surgeons (ACS), is the gold standard for trauma care. It gives clinicians a clear, structured way to assess and treat injured patients—helping them prioritize what matters most when time and resources are limited.

“ATLS provides a structured approach to trauma care. When chaos prevails, clinicians need to know how to use available resources quickly and correctly to save lives. Ukraine is at the beginning of institutionalizing ATLS, but this can fundamentally transform trauma care nationwide,” says Dr. Serguei Melnitchouk, MD, MPH, FACS, Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Program Director of the Heart Valve Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, Co-Chairman & Chair of Medical Operations at GMKA.  

Dr. Kateryna Potapova, MD, MHA, PhD, Co-Executive Director of GMKA Ukraine, emphasizes that real impact goes beyond a single training—it lies in ensuring that Ukrainian doctors can access and sustain this knowledge across the country.

“It is important to scale, nationalize, and integrate ATLS into Ukraine’s healthcare system so that the program is sustainable and locally led,” she says. “Together with our partners, we are working to ensure that ATLS courses are systematically offered across Ukraine. With proper scaling, doctors will be able to access modern training and certification without needing to travel abroad to countries that already host ATLS courses.”

The Kyiv training included two intensive ATLS Provider Courses (March 23–24 and March 27–28), where participants worked through real-life scenarios, practiced critical procedures, and strengthened decision-making under pressure. An ATLS Instructor Course (March 25–26) added another layer of impact: building a new cohort of trainers who will carry this knowledge forward into their own hospitals and regions.

Interest far exceeded capacity: more than 350 clinicians applied, many from regions most affected by the war. Forty were selected, representing cities such as Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipro, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Odesa.
 

“Gaps in trauma knowledge often lead to treatment errors—primarily due to limited experience and insufficient support. As a member of a mass casualty response team, I believe the knowledge gained in this course will allow me to confidently share these skills with others. Thanks to this training and certification, I will be better prepared to support colleagues in providing effective trauma care,” says Dr. Hassan El-Kafarna, surgeon from Shakhtarske. 

At simulation stations, participants practiced essential interventions—from controlling severe bleeding to performing procedures they had never attempted before.

“What was most useful for me were cricothyrotomy and pleural drainage, because I had never performed these procedures before, not even on mannequins. So if I ever need to perform them, I’ll be much less afraid,” says Dr. Kateryna Boiko, anesthesiologist from Chernihiv.

 

Beyond individual skills, ATLS creates something equally important: a shared language for trauma care. When teams are aligned on terminology, protocols, and priorities, they can act faster and more effectively—even in the most challenging circumstances.

The courses were led by certified Ukrainian ATLS instructors and directed by Dr. Geoffrey Anderson, MD, MPH, FACS, a trauma surgeon at Los Angeles General Medical Center. He noted not only the relevance of the training, but also the depth of engagement from participants:

“I have been impressed with the engagement. Clearly, there is a strong desire for this type of education, and it shows. Sometimes I have taught ATLS courses where students are quiet and just listen—not here. Ukrainian students are very engaged; they ask questions, and those questions clearly come from experience. They have seen these types of patients before, and they want to know the best way to treat them. This facilitates discussion and makes the course much richer.”

Since 2022, GMKA has been laying the groundwork to make ATLS sustainable in Ukraine. This includes translating official ATLS manuals (10th and 11th editions) and providing free access to Ukrainian-language materials—removing barriers for doctors who need this knowledge most.

The goal is not only to deliver trainings, but to help embed them into the healthcare system—so that Ukrainian clinicians can continue to train, teach, and lead independently.

“Scaling ATLS is central to GMKA’s mission of improving trauma care in Ukraine,” says Dr. Potapova. “The number of trauma patients is increasing and will remain significant even after the war ends. The ability to effectively respond to large numbers of injured patients—whether due to armed conflict or emergencies—requires standardized approaches like this. That is exactly what these training programs provide, because their main goal is to save lives.”