He’s an ordinary person in the crowd. No halo, no medals. Rushing to work. To a place where a unique kind of magic happens every day, because, like a wizard, he restores people’s mobility in just a few hours. Yes, those people in that crowd, who sometimes suddenly feel pain and find it impossible to continue their usual morning rush to their daily tasks.
He is Volodymyr Herasymov, a vascular surgeon. And he knows well that life is movement. The movement of blood through the vessels. If blood cannot move freely, the person stops as well. Career achievements, earned money, designer clothes, and fancy interiors lose their meaning. Even the successes of their children fade in the haze of pain and fear for the future of those very children, and all of one’s plans shrink to a pixel of "here and now."
Do people in the bustling morning crowd think about this? Of course not. Does he?
— "I constantly look at legs and mentally make a diagnosis. Thirty years in medicine. It's in my blood to monitor how it moves in others."
He enjoys walking slowly through hospital corridors because they remind him of blood vessels. Arteries—when satisfied patients are leaving the clinic, and veins—when patients "blue" from pain and worry, are heading toward the doctor.
The system fails when there are obstacles or blockages along the transit routes. He never tires of explaining this to patients before surgery, because he believes that a surgeon must first reach the heart with words.
— "Talking to a patient is a psychological test. The body doesn’t get sick separately from the mind—small talk won’t cut it. A good doctor doesn’t just see a patient, but a person: someone who’s nervous and withholding information, hiding things, doubting, striving, and hoping…"
His father, also a vascular surgeon, who passed the professional torch to him and his sister—who is also continuing the family legacy with honor—would often say that experience does not dictate rules. "Remember, there are no identical patients, no axioms, you’ll always have to keep learning." He has been working since he was 14 years old (starting as a nurse’s aide), has performed 4,000 surgeries, and each time he walks the corridor to the operating room, he prepares to find the right new "password" to this fantastic system—the circulatory system.
A phlebologist’s surgeries are unique: the patient is conscious, and local anesthesia is used for pain relief. The scalpel touches someone who’s awake and nervously watching… The psychological tension in the operating room can be so intense that you could cut the air with a knife. That’s when the surgeon suggests listening to music or asks about the news... The patient always hesitantly asks if they’re being a distraction.
— "Life, like blood, pulses without pauses. My job is to ensure its flow doesn’t distract YOU from living."
The patient glances nervously at the tray of instruments. Cold steel for hot blood. The doctor confidently maneuvers the tools, so focused and absorbed by the monitor that, suddenly, the peacefulness of this cinematic scene spreads a pleasant warmth through the patient’s body…
It’s incredible, but under the surgeon's blade, his patients read books, watch films, or scroll through social media on their phones, and the tension subtly transforms into a web of cozy thoughts. Later, the patient will notice the droplets of blood on the surgeon’s glasses and think that a surgeon’s life pulses without cozy pauses, in unison with his work.
The work of a surgeon is a parade of contrasts. Side by side are pain and health, fear and hope, blood and smiles, beginnings and endings…
Almost daily, he removes blood-stained gloves from his hands. A manic manipulation, yet paradoxically full of the thirst for life. It’s this process that drives his brisk walk to work each morning, as relentless as the crimson streams of blood. This post-surgery moment of "cleansing" is one he loves, as it gives him the chance to exhale and symbolically "remove" the pain and problem from the patient.
"My hands should never go before my head," his father taught him. And he adopted the habit of performing two surgeries: one "in his head," and the second with the patient involved. This "circulation" of thoughts sets a hectic pace from the early morning, draining him, and there’s never enough time for everything: for family, for sleep, for hobbies, or even for himself. But he likes to repeat that a good doctor doesn’t live an ordinary life. A good doctor is, after all, an extraordinary person who chooses to live the lives of others.
The moment after surgery often resembles a biblical miracle:
— "Now get up and walk!"
The patient’s eyes flicker with fear. A faint smile always touches his face because every time, the patient doesn’t believe that the severe varicose veins are now just a memory and a note in their medical chart. They didn’t believe it BEFORE the surgery when he told them that one visit would be enough to get rid of this hereditary condition that their grandmother and mother suffered from. They don’t believe it AFTER the surgery either, when it seems they just watched a movie, listened to music, and yet their life has changed completely. The first steps and first emotions are always truly cinematic.
Uncertainty, doubt, fear, distrust, confusion... But still, they take a STEP!
"...How do I get up…my leg is bandaged...the surgery was just done...there’s a wound there...what if it starts bleeding???...But he’s the doctor… he knows better… he said I’d walk on my own, so I have to… So why doubt??!!"
A second—and strange light of hope and trust flickers in their eyes.
Another second—and leaning on the doctor’s hand, they take their first steps.
The first steps of a new life for the patient and an ordinary day for him, where at this moment, he is a healer-magician, and tomorrow—a regular person in the crowd.
