President: Professor Christopher Stephens MBA MAEd FRCGP
A meeting of the Southampton Medical Society was held on the 5th February 2025. The President was in the chair. The minutes of the last meeting were approved.
The President introduced the speaker Dr Leonid Krivskiy FRCA who spoke to the title “My Ukraine Medical Aid Project - no man is an island.” It all started with a row across the Mediterranean for his 50th birthday celebration! He had never rowed before and was surprised to find moments of great happiness during the row. Then the Ukraine war broke out. He is Russian but his wife is from Ukraine and he was horrified by the invasion. He felt a need to do something. He set up a site and within one week had received donations worth £1,000. He sourced things that the Ukrainians needed and drove his car, and later a van, which was packed with equipment of which the hospitals were in need.
Leo said he had always had a dream to row over an ocean. So when he reached his 50th birthday he joined a charity row in the Mediterranean from Barcelona to Ibiza.He not only enjoyed it but realised if he could do something big like rowing the Atlantic he could raise a lot of money to help Ukraine and also test himself with a much greater challenge.
He went into training and planning. The slowest crossing ever recorded was 100 days so he planned food for that time. he ate every two hours to provide enough energy for rowing 12 - 14 hours a day, though not in one go, which needed 8000 to 10,000 calories a day. In fact he ran short before the end as he lost a lot of food when his cabin was flooded one day and it went rotten. There was of course no engine in his boat. If things went wrong and he was unable to row then he just drifted as happened at night or in storms. If the wind was from the west he used a sea anchor to reduce the backward drift. There was a southerly gale at one point which was very difficult for him. He tried to row westwards but ended up going sideways and suffering a tear in his triceps. He showed a chart of his progress which showed that he was travelling in the wrong direction quite often. Once he was thrown out of the boat but managed to hold on. Getting onboard again was extremely difficult, even though he was lashed to the boat, in 10 metre waves that travel very fast. In the last three weeks he was seriously malnourished and had periods of hallucinations and was so weak he could hardly row. As he approached Barbados a southerly storm with air temperatures of nearly 40 degrees enveloped him and pushed him way from his destination All he could do was to drift with the sea anchor out and he was fortunate to have been found by the Barbados coast guards on patrol who towed him into port and his waiting family.
He paid especial thanks to his colleagues who covered for him while he was away which included doing his shifts when they were off duty for two months.
The President thanked Leo for his dramatic lecture. Leo’s charity, Ukrops, had raised well over £50,000 at the time of the lecture.
The meeting then continued with the inauguration of Dr Mary Alveyn [Rogerson] as President for the coming season by our retiring President Prof. Chris Stephens.
There was no other business.