In June, 36-year-old Ludmila Hwan, a native of Kyrgyzstan and a professor at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), came to Massachusetts to get an inside look at our country's educational system.

Instead, Ludmila spent the next three months getting an inside look at a completely different aspect of the United States – our healthcare system.

After visiting Columbia University, Ludmila, who teaches languages and linguistics at AUCA, moved on to observe a high school in Western Massachusetts. It was there that she suffered an acute cerebral hemorrhage.

Alone, except for a university colleague who would soon return to Kyrgyzstan, Ludmila was admitted to UMass Medical Center where she immediately had surgery to alleviate pressure in her brain. She would stay at UMass for the next seven weeks, three of which were spent in a medically induced coma.

In late August, when Ludmila was transferred to Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital, she was seriously debilitated. Unable to even stand, she also had difficulty using her arms and hands to carry out basic activities of daily living. The injury to her brain had also caused some cognitive impairment, making it difficult for her to process information and follow directions.

Throughout her hospitalization, several organizations in different parts of the world worked together to help Ludmila. Coordinating her care and arranging for her eventual return to Kyrgyzstan was complicated, but people here in the United States and in Asia persevered.

Along with UMass and Fairlawn collaborating to provide her with a continuum of care that would facilitate her recovery, AUCA, located in Kyrgyzstan's capital of Bishkek, played an instrumental role in ensuring support for her extensive and costly treatment. Along with contributing some funds for her care, AUCA called upon the Open Society Foundations, whose U.S. office is located in New York City. Established in 1984 to help countries (like Kyrgyzstan) make the transition from communism, the Open Society Foundations financed most of Ludmila's care and return to Kyrgyzstan on September 20th.

On that day, Ludmila, ambulating with a walker and able to do most activities of daily living with some assistance, traveled from Fairlawn to JFK Airport to return to her native country,where she now resides with her parents in a small town called Kant. While there are concerns about follow-up care, Ludmila is hopeful that a physician her sister has contacted will provide the treatment she needs.

"If this had happened in Kyrgyzstan, things would be very, very different for me. There, the medical care is quite poor – not like the UMass Medical Center," said Ludmila before her discharge home. "And there are no such things as rehabilitation hospitals ... There are no places like Fairlawn in Kyrgyzstan to go after such a serious illness."

Although she did not have a chance to learn all that she wanted to about the U.S. educational system, Ludmila said her experience showed her how "very kind people can be."

It is a sentiment echoed by people who have assisted her along the way here in Worcester. "It is encouraging to know that people of different cultures living in places thousands of miles apart can work together to help an individual," said Jacqueline Grady, Director of Referral Services at Fairlawn.