TULSA, Okla. — Dr. Robert Lim is back home in Tulsa after spending two weeks in war-torn Ukraine.
“Given my background in the military and as a surgeon, I felt I could do something,” Lim said.
During his two-week trip, Lim and 25 other medical professionals trained about 1,500 Ukrainians on combat casualty care. He has a personal connection to the country. Lim and his wife adopted their 18-year-old daughter, Viktoria, from Ukraine in 2012. It’s part of the reason he felt called to help.
“Unfortunately one of the people who helped us adopt our daughter was killed by gunfire in Kyiv and he was just a great great guy,” Lim said.
After that tragic death, he reached out to the Global Surgical Medical Support Group to see what he could do. A short time later, he was on a plane headed to Lviv. Along with training soldiers and civilians on how to survive battlefield injuries, they also assisted with medical care and spent time helping orphans.
“A lot of these orphans were displaced from the orphanages in Kyiv because they were blown up or because the people who were running them had to evacuate,” Lim said.
He said the resilience of the Ukrainian people is inspiring.
“If they hadn’t left Ukraine, they were either going to stay and fight or stay and help the people who were fighting in any way that they could. It was actually very inspiring to see the people of Ukraine come together like that,” Lim said.
Lim works at OU Health. He got a big welcome home celebration when he made it back safely. He says he was called to make the trip.
“I had the skill set and I had this pull towards it so it’s almost like it would’ve been wrong to not go,” Lim said.
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