How does a Colby English major from Boston go on to earn the Michajlo Hrushevskij Medal for humanitarian aid, a prestigious award named for the first president of the Ukrainian National Republic? Ask Dashawetz, who spends four weeks each year in Ukraine bringing medical care to those who need it most.

After Colby, Dashawetz found that he had a love for science and for teaching. He graduated from the Boston University School of Nursing and began practicing and, eventually, teaching anesthesia. "I think that part of what I used to do in teaching has also helped me in Ukraine, because that's what we do--teach. We want to leave them with something," he said. Having spent most of his life in the Boston area, settled with a growing family and a prosperous career in anesthesia, Dashawetz needed something more. In 1990 he found it.

"A friend of mine asked me whether I would go to Ukraine with him to do anesthesia for his orthopedic surgery," he said. "When we got there, I was just so floored by the horrible medical system." Dashawetz had been active for many years in Ukranian politics, heading up and attending human rights demonstrations in Boston and Washington, but when he saw how much Ukraine was suffering medically, he decided to change focus. Emergency Medical Aid for Ukraine (EMAU) was born.

This philosophy has kept Dashawetz and his group going for 12 years now, but it wasn't easy at first. They started bringing medical supplies to 15 different hospitals, trying to help as many people as possible. But Ukrainian children suffer 40,000 burn cases every year, and it was impossible to help them all. "We literally had hundreds of children waiting in line from all areas of Ukraine to be looked at. After the first week was over, we sat down and cried," he said.

EMAU started to take a much more personal approach, focusing on a smaller number of hospitals, developing close working relationships with the staff and creating programs that eventually became centers of excellence. In the last 12 years, EMAU has started and supported 13 projects, such as the Pediatric Dialysis Center, considered the best in Ukraine, the Pediatric Burn Center and the Adult Rehabilitation Center. Many of these projects are the first of their kind in Ukraine. "Even though we left politics," he said, "I think in the back of our minds we still feel that this is part of country building."

These days, Dashawetz spends the other 48 weeks of the year back in Maine, enjoying the peaceful area of Machiasport in Down East Maine. "When I left Colby in 1970, I always told myself that I would come back," he said. He's found that medical care in a small town can be much more personal. Now his patients bring him deer and lobsters and invite him to their houses for dinner. "These people need access to medical care, you know, kind of like in Ukraine," he said. It's a big change from the bustling Boston atmosphere in which Dashawetz was raised, but he doesn't miss the city. "People go to Cancun and they think that's exotic," he said. "There's nothing more exotic than Machiasport."

--Ann Marie Sears '03