This surgeon never failed to pray to Mary before operating on a patient

The Saint Lukas is one of five government-funded medical trains that travel to remote towns in central and eastern Russia. Each stop lasts an average of two days, and during that time the doctors and nurses on board provide rural populations with basic medical care, X-ray scans, prescriptions and referrals to seek specialist help.

Doctors see up to 150 patients every day. The train’s equipment allows for basic but comprehensive checkups. Doctors and nurses administer blood tests and can provide sonography, brain wave scans (EEGs), heart rhythm tests (ECGs) and X-rays. The duration of each stop depends on the degree of health care available on the ground; some larger towns have several thousand inhabitants and a hospital, while others have a population of only a few hundred and just one overburdened local doctor. The Saint Lukas is the only one of the five medical trains to include a carriage that houses a chapel, where believers can pray between medical tests or baptize their children if their town has no place of worship. Patients can go there before and after their medical treatments.

The medical train is named after Saint Lukas, a priest and doctor who operated in Krasnoyarsk during WWII. St Lukas survived the Bolshevik Revolution and Stalin’s gulags, and was beatified in the year 2000 by the Orthodox Church. He had a strong devotion to the Virgin Mary and never failed to pray to her before operating on a patient. 

Adapted from Newsweek and Aleteia