On Nov. 5, Meghan Mullaney, a 1999 Bellport High School grad, will fly to Lviv, Ukraine, to assist as a neurophysiologist with International Spine Aid, a nonprofit headed by lead spinal surgeon Marc Dyrszka, M.D., with colleague, neurophysiologist Brian Demboski.
Their surgeries will be performed at St. Nicholas Children’s Hospital, in Lviv.
The goal, performing intricate surgeries on children with scoliosis, is a mighty one. The condition causes the spine to develop an abnormal sideways curvature and about 80 to 90 percent of cases are idiopathic scoliosis, meaning doctors cannot find a single direct cause.
“We hope to perform 17 surgeries,” said Mullaney, talking to the Advance from her parents Wahsoon and Michael Mullaney’s home in Bellport.
“The majority of children we treat are teens,” Mullaney said. “Last year, we did 14 surgeries in 13 days. The average in the U.S. is once or twice a week.”
Mullaney said they were leaning on local U.S. communities for funding; they’re looking to raise $30,000 this year. Her rented apartment in Lviv is within walking distance to the hospital.
Is it near the conflict?
“You don’t even think about it,” she said. “We’re far away from the front.”
In her role, “neurophysiologists monitor that the spinal nerve pathways remain intact during the surgery,” she said. It is a diligent, focused role that keeps the surgeon abreast of significant or emerging changes by recording and analyzing electrical activity with chronicling, imaging and stimulation machinery. Needles and electrodes are placed on the patient before the surgery. “Once we can get baseline data, it’s safe to start the surgery,” she said. “[As neurophysiologists] we’re the first ones in the room and the last to leave.”
The surgeries generally take six hours and are sometimes performed in two stages.
“You want to straighten out the spine as much as possible and the doctor knows how much to correct,” she explained. “Often these patients have a curve that’s so severe, you have to remove a vertebrae.” A vertebral replacement, or titanium rods, screws or hardware used to straighten or stabilize the spine are the implant tools.
The St. Nicholas Hospital team has worked with the International Spine Aid team for four years; Mullaney has worked with them for two.
As a certified neurophysiologist, Mullaney has been a staffer at New York Presbyterian Spine Hospital for seven and a half years, where she met Dr. Marc Dyrszka, whose family is Ukrainian.
“His cousin was killed earlier in the skirmishes,” she said of Dyrszka, founder and president of International Spine Aid Surgical Spine Care for Children in Ukraine. “So, he felt compelled to go into action this way.”
With this visit, they are also training Dr. Maryan Orach.
Mullaney laughed when asked if there was any sleep or downtime.
Nope.
“When you’re invited there as a guest, Ukrainians want to show you their culture and a good time. I think I slept a total of 12 hours when I went last year.”
Mullaney is a 1999 Bellport High School graduate who was captain of her tennis and volleyball teams and president of Students for Environmental Quality. With a bachelor’s in the arts and art history, and a master’s in landscape architecture, she ran into the recession in these fields, then was tapped by a neurosurgeon to become certified.
“I thought it was interesting and knew it was important,” she said.
Seeing the results of a young person’s surgery and what it means to them and their family has to be profound. “This is medicine I’m happy to participate in,” she said.
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