Special Commission on Relief and Education

09/19/2026

SCORE Medical Relief Team
Rich’s Log 9/18/2026

Csaba, Tony and Tanya brought us to the Roma community in G*t. We set up the medical clinic in Tony’s Baptist church.

The Roma people arrived in Europe from Nothern India more than 1500 years ago. Most have settled and no longer wander. The Roma have a common language, Romanës, but the ones here mainly speak Hungarian, and although of many faiths, these are Baptist Roma. They work locally in factories and farms and are also well known as artisans, blacksmiths, musicians, fortune-tellers and entertainers. The Roma have been marginalized for centuries with minimal access to health care.

All of the patients knew Tony and Tanya who assist them in multiple ways, including giving medication instructions to those unable to read.

We got to work again with Genoveva (Jenny), a friend from 3 years ago.

Every patient received dental screening as well as Albendazole for deworming.

Danielle S. graduated from her Point of Care Ultrasound course and is now ready to teach her residents.

We did lots of steroid injections for arthritis and treated others for pneumonia, hypertension, and anemia. Diagnosed a patient with a bladder mass and bilateral mild hydronephrosis. Referred her to a urologist.

Susan had an 89 yr old in Congestive Heart Failure.

Most interesting case of the day was a 65 yr old woman who stepped on glass a few years ago. Unsanitary conditions and sporadic medical care took its toll and she presented today with the entire back of the calf ulcerated and the heel area filleted open. I cleaned and debrided the necrotic tissue, and touched my probe down to the bone. No Bueno. Betsy and Danielle S. dressed the wound with silver alginate, kerlix and ace wraps. We McGyvered a walking boot to keep the pressure off the heel and gave her lots of wound care supplies. Betsy showed her how to walk properly using her forearm crutches. I strongly advised that she talk to an orthopedic surgeon about a below the knee amputation.

After the last patient was seen, we had a nice lunch and then separated the medicines and supplies, leaving most for another medical team arriving in December. Also sent three luggages of supplies and meds, including IV antibiotic Aztreonam, to Yuii’s hospital. Missed you Yurii.

Hugged “Until next time” to our friends that continue their daily mission in Ukraine assisting others.

Otto, with HBA, and his brother Tommie drove us back across the border to Hungary. Except Danielle S, who again walked across the border, the same way she came in.

Back in the U.S., Rep. Marcy Kaptur helped lead bipartisan passage of a bill that increased Russian sanctions. Just in time, as Ukrainians are looking at another upcoming cold winter without adequate heat and electricity. Glad that we chose to continue to support freedom and Ukraine’s defense of her homeland.

The SCORE medical team did its small part, treating 285 patients this week. Praying that this terrible war will end and the peace doves will fly over Ukraine again.

09/18/2026

SCORE Medical Relief Team
Rich’s Log 9/17/2026
Our team worked today at a local Ukrainian school, just a 5 minute walk from our hotel. The 120 year old lyceum was named after Taras Shevchenko, the father of modern Ukrainian literature. The school is also where Csaba and Tony studied. Principal Oleksandr at that time was the gym teacher for the young Nagy boys.
The school has 544 kids, of which 98 were displaced by the war. Bak, the English teacher, brought his students Tonya, Nadia, Vlad, and Max to assist with translating.
Mike screened all of the kids teeth first before they went to the clinics, and did extractions on a few of them.
Lots of well child exams, musculoskeletal issues, and of course, anxiety due to the war.
Susan treated a mother and 9 yr. old son that moved this week to Berehove from a town near Kyiv. He was taking peroxicam and herbals for liver and gallbladder problems. Ultrasound was normal so Susan stopped the meds. His mom told the boy that he could have a real puppy. The stuffed toy puppy that he picked brought a big smile to his face.
Danielle S. got to try her hand with pediatric echocardiograms and appendix ultrasounds.
At 1:23 pm, the air raid siren went off. Mike and Jim stayed upstairs and kept working. The rest of us went downstairs into the bomb shelter. Marina, the cultural teacher, did a wonderful job of keeping the kids spirits up and their minds off the war by playing music and singing a song about Ukraine. When the Latin music started, Danielle S, Lorrie, and I did our part to help keep the kids entertained.
Once the “All clear” sounded, we went back to see the last few patients, then disrupted a teacher’s class to pass out stuffed toys to the kindergarteners.
The Principal gave us a nice tour of the school. Danielle Z practiced leaving UT stickers on the school wall while Danielle S. practiced her yoga. The school then presented a beautiful picture painted by the children as a thank you present. It will hang in my office forever.
Csaba, Tony, Tanya and the team shared an early dinner at the Helikon Hotel, our old stomping ground. Went shopping for “Guess what our families and friends are getting from Ukraine” candies. We invited the store employee that helped us so much to come to tomorrow’s clinic. He was a Ukrainian soldier, wounded by 3 Russian bullets with continued shoulder pain.

09/17/2026

SCORE Medical Relief Team
Rich’s Log 9/16/2026

Csaba and Tony drove the team to the village of Bereg where we set up the medical and dental clinic in a quaint church. Jim set up his pharmacy in a three walled shed.

The patients today all spoke Hungarian. Nagybereg Reformed Lyceum is a nearby Hungarian-language Reformed Christian secondary school that draws students from throughout Transcarpathia. Timi, the English teacher, brought Evelin, Eszter, Bogi ,and Barbie to translate for the team today. Köszönöm.

One of my first patients was an elderly female with an acute exacerbation of asthma due to bilateral pneumonia. She felt better after a stat albuterol aerosol and left with prednisone, 2 antibiotics, and mucinex. Her son was also banned from smoking in her house.

Saw a 40 year old male with Congenital Myotonia, the most common muscular dystrophy among adults of European ancestry. Over the last year since I last saw him, he fell a few times while walking up the stairs. But overall, his progressive muscle weakness has been stable. His mother and sister had milder symptoms. Unfortunately, there are no resources in Ukraine to perform genetic testing for his son. He appreciated the PT exercises that Danielle Z provided to them.

A patient that John Wells treated last year walked in with her prescription for losartan and commented on how well the steroid shot worked. I refilled John’s Rx and re-injected the knee. Then we woke up John at six in the morning in Utah, just to say hi.

Lorrie, Susan, and Betsy performed lots of other steroid injections today and treated lots of elderly.

Danielle S. is going through a hands-on Point Of Care Ultrasound Course and examined a long line of patients. Absolutely killing it!

Fr. Miklós brought in an 11 year-old girl with Diabetes and fluctuating blood sugars. Fr. Miklós is the pastor at the Protection of Blessed Virgin Mary Greek Catholic Church in Janoshi. SCORE has been assisting his granddaughter obtain corrective surgery for her complicated cleft palate case at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. The diabetic girl actually had a continuous glucose monitor and was very compliant with taking her four shots of daily insulin. I made some small adjustments and gave her a little more Diabetes education.

Mike had a patient that needed all of her remaining rotten upper teeth removed. She just wasn’t ready for the extractions today. Hopefully, she’ll see Mike tomorrow.

My last patient was a woman that only wanted an ultrasound of her abdomen, stating that she really had no symptoms. After I found seven gallstones, she opened up about her daily right upper quadrant pain. I referred her to a surgeon for a cholecystectomy. When I told her that she also had a large bladder mass, she confided that she actually had been having hematuria for a few months, but was too scared to tell anyone. Her hemoglobin was normal. Referred her to urology for further work up in the hopes that this is not cancerous.

Danielle S realized today that the reader glasses that we thought were a strong 4.O, were actually 0.0 fashionista glasses!

A young girl, minus a tooth thanks to Mike, passed out small crocheted baskets as a thank you gift.

Fr. Miklos and his wife treated the team to a wonderful homemade dinner of Rakot krumpli and
Töltöt kaposzta. 19 refugees still shelter in the school next door to the 119 year old church.

2:06 a.m. Air raid warning went off for the entire country. Those darn Russians!
2:26 a.m. “ Attention. The Air Alert is over. May the force be with you!”

What? “May the force be with you”? God protects.

09/16/2026

SCORE Medical Relief Team
Rich’s Log 9/15/2026

Dedicating today’s work to my Mom. I’m sure she’s watching over us from heaven. Hard to believe it’s been 3 years ago today. Miss you Mom.

Our clinic site was in a 130 year old school that educates about 1000 kids, including many internally displaced children. Sandbags protecting the lower windows remind the kids of the daily missile and drone threats. Russia has damaged or destroyed more than 4,500 schools since the start of the war in their attempt to obliterate the educational foundation of Ukraine.
Csaba and Svitlana handled registration while Jim and Tanya ran the pharmacy. We had 4 new high school students translators that helped us treat lots of kids and teachers.
Mike set up his dental clinic in the corner and treated the kiddies.
Danielle S. had a patent that had uncontrolled hypertension and periodic chest pain. He ran out of his meds months ago. EKG was ok, so she loaded him up with a 6 month supply of meds.
Lorrie had a child with significant behavioral issues. We hope the sertraline will help control his OCD and allow him to thrive in school.
Most interesting case of the day was my 14 yr old translator who wants to be a neurosurgeon. She felt increasingly fatigued and lightheaded and had normal vitals, physical exam, and EKG. When I had her run up and down the hall, her heart rate shot up to 142 and her O2 sat dropped to78%!!! Her spot hemoglobin of 5.8 gave us the answer. Started her on iron and vitamins and communicated with her mom the need for further workup with her doctor tomorrow. Even neurosurgeons need blood.
I got to play volleyball with a girl in the gym. Happiness. Never miss a chance to coach and shake off my rusty skills.
The Principal gifted us a box of chocolates. Guess that she didn’t see Danielle Z climb the ladder to post a UT sticker on the gym wall.
Finished early, so Csaba and Tony took the team out to eat at Jordy Burger, shop, and enjoy some of historical Berehove.
The air raid alarm went off as we were having dinner outside of the hotel. No one else seemed to worry. Must be alarm fatigue. The hotel had no basement anyways, so we finished our meals and ate the chocolates from the school.
Looked across the street at the stained glass windows of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church that we ran a clinic in last year. Thought about how these resilient and brave children that we saw today, once their potential is turned on, will be the light of the world.

09/15/2026

SCORE Medical Relief Team
Rich’s Log 9/142026

Csaba, Tony, and Tonya opened up the Transcarpathian Baptist Foundation mission building as today’s clinic site. We treated a steady stream of patients along with our fabulous translators Olena, Anna, Ruslana, and Vadym.

10 to 20 families arrive into Berehove each week from the fightjng in the Zaporizhzhia region of eastern Ukraine. Csaba’s foundation helps to find them a shelter or apartment and a job. Olena who translated for Lorrie, also helps out with the PTSD art therapy program for the kids. 17 yr old Vadym who translated for Mike, became a refugee in Sweden when the war started, and then moved back to Western Ukraine. Over the last 3 years, he has been attending school on-line. He lives with his grandmother and 10 yr old brother.

The hardships of many of the patients are tied in with their mental health needs. Danielle Z did a great job of translating their difficult stories and learned that simply being there to listen to them, combined with appropriate meds at times, can help them through their difficult journey.

Our first patients were a husband and wife in their 60’s from Dontesk who escaped to Berehove at the start of the war and have been displaced for more than 4 1/2 years. She wanted to go back home, which they knew was an impossibility . I started both on Sertraline to treat their depression and anxiety.

We also had a 49 yr old whose town in Donbas was completely destroyed by the Russians. Her husband was still fighting on the front. Sertraline will hopefully help her depression symptoms as well.

A 59 yr old from Donetsk lost her husband and son when her home was bombed. She needed multiple major surgeries and moved here with nothing. For her depression and poor sleep, she didn’t want meds, so instead, Lorrie gave her a Catholic bracelet. She said that it felt like Lorrie was celebrating Christmas with her.

It was good to see so many patients that we had treated in the past. At times it felt like an annual Medicare wellness visit. We refilled their prescriptions that we gave them last year, reinjected their arthritic joints, treated their chronic hypertension and diabetes, repeated an ultrasound of their thyroid, and requested that they lose weight and stop smoking again. Exactly!

Danielle’s and my last patient was a sweet 3 yr old girl with significant speech deficits. It was only after recent speech therapy that they realized she had profound hearing loss. We gave her hearing aids that should help her lead a normal life. She picked out a pink bunny and mittens and her Mom and Aunt teared up when they read the prayer that a child from St. Rose in Perrysburg wrote to her in a health kit. The girl came back with boxes of chocolates as a thank you gift.

Great news. Danielle S. was able to get a temporary passport at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, with the aid of Dávid Gál and U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur. HBA drove her to the Hungarian side of the border, where she then walked through 2 checkpoints, and entered Ukraine where Csaba was waiting to get her. They joined the team for dinner back at our hotel. The chocolates from the 3 yr old girl were yummy.

09/15/2026

SCORE Medical Relief Team
Rich’s Log 9/11-12/2026

This is the Special Commission on Relief and Education’s (SCORE) 8th medical relief mission into the Transcarpathia region of Western Ukraine.

Team members:
1. Susan Batten, FNP, PhD, long time missioner and fresh off the plane from the recent mission to Puerto Rico.
2. Danielle Zhukivska, a bright UT freshman who has already been accepted into pharmacy school. She joined 2 prior teams in Honduras. Born of Ukrainian parents, and following in the footsteps of her mom, Dr. Lana, and sister Jessica, this is her 1st time to visit her motherland. With her fluent Ukrainian, it’s her time to shine.
3. Betsy Davis, MD, Family Med/OB, who started in the missions as a UT med student, and will bring her “Minnesota nice” smile on her 5th mission to Ukraine.
4. Lorrie Elchert, DNP - Family Med, recently retired from practice, but not from the missions. She has joined all 7 of our forays into Ukraine, speaking Croatian to the Ukrainians every year.
5. Danielle Saevig, MD, Family Med who joined our teams as an undergrad and med student, now teaching residents. Part of the Philippines mission 2 years ago.
6. Mike Kastner, DDS who joined our 1st missions into Guatemala and Tanzania. He will be the 1st dentist to join our teams into Ukraine.
7. Jim Kramer, RPh, who joined 3 prior teams to Ukraine as our pharmacist.
8. Me

It’s been 4 yeas, 6 months, and 19 days since Russia invaded Ukraine with 2 million Russian and Ukrainian killed, wounded, and missing. 10 million Ukrainians have been displaced from their homes with 6 million living abroad and 4 million inside Ukraine. Putin has damaged or destroyed more than 2,500 hospitals and clinics including more than 80 maternity and neonatal facilities. Our medical team hopes to assist some of the thousands of Ukrainians sheltering in the Transcarpathia region displaced by the war.

Huge shoutout to Dr. Diane Cappelletty who assisted our UT Students for Medical Missions team and other volunteers pack the meds from Mercy St. Anne’s Pharmacy and supplies. Special thanks also to Maria Gonzalez for making our travel arrangements.

We left for Detroit at 2:30 pm on Saturday and were flown to Amsterdam by Jim Kramer’s son, Patrick, a Delta Airline pilot. What a special moment. Smooth touchdown.

The team arrived into Budapest with 17 luggages and a wheelchair, but minus one passport. Our friends, Andrea and Bence Gál with Hungarian Baptist Aid, drove us 4 hours to the border crossing. After lots of checking of our meds and equipment, we made it into Ukraine., Danielle Zhukivska After stepping on Ukrainian soil for the first time and used her Ukrainian to help get us through customs.

David Gál, the Chief Executive Director of HBA and Csaba Nagy, the director of the Transcarpathian Baptist Foundation, met us at the border and brought us to their mission headquarters. Said thanks and adieu to the Gál family as they drove back to Budapest. David will assist Danielle S. get a replacement passsport at the U.S. Embassy tomorrow so that she can rejoin the team.

Csaba took us to Hotel Serkert where we had a nice dinner. He then gave us a situation update on how life in Ukraine has become more difficult with Russia’s continuous attacks targeting the civilians.

Although we are far from the front, the war always remains close, with a Russian drone recently striking 30 miles away. I turned on the Air Alert app, and laid down after 26 hours of travel.

This mission is dedicated to the Ukrainians devastated by this war and our current and prior team members fighting their own battles with cancer.

09/13/2026

https://www.13abc.com/2026/08/30/toledo-area-medical-team-prepares-eighth-mission-trip-western-ukraine/

Each team member will take two 50-pound suitcases of supplies, including medications from Mercy Health and health kits made by children at Saint Rose School.