Cardiac Experts Share Experience Worldwide

By Nancy K. Crevier

Hearts Around the World, Inc, a nonprofit founded in 2008 by Dr Robert Jarrett, a cardiac specialist and an associate clinical professor at Yale University Medical School, and his wife, Menoo Afkari-Jarret, acknowledge that everybody, worldwide deserves the benefits of modern medical and cardiovascular care. To that end, Hearts Around the World supports training for medical and cardiovascular programs in emerging nations, providing doctors in those countries with the information and techniques necessary to provide adequate care.

More than 15 years ago, working with the Healing the Children organization, Dr Jarrett developed a model for such a program in St Petersburg, Russia, and has created a relationship with the doctors and administrators of St George’s Hospital. Using that model, Dr Jarrett led a team to Saigon, Vietnam, in November 2008, the first international medical program sponsored by Hearts Around the World.

At Choray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, the team worked with Vietnamese physicians, teaching the latest techniques of repairing congenital heart defects without open-heart surgery.

Dr Jeremy Asnes, assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine and assistant director of the pediatric catherization lab at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, accompanied Dr Jarrett and Hearts Around the World in November. He sees the organization as a chance to provide education and help develop a sustainable program in a country where the situation is dramatically different from that in the United States.

“Emotionally, it can be difficult to deal with,” said Dr Asnes. “There are diseases there that we never see here in the United States,” he said. “It makes you realize and be thankful for what we have available for children in the United States, and a little humble for complaining about what we don’t have, when you see what doctors in other parts of the world are grappling with every day to provide care.”

Choray Hospital is a state hospital, he explained, trying to provide care to rural patients who may travel 100 miles or more. Without the education and support provided by organizations like Hearts Around the World, said Dr Asnes, it is very hard for the doctors there to provide the care needed.

The team did perform some surgical procedures in November, but the trip was largely a fact-gathering trip to explore the long-term relationship. A return trip with a complete medical team in September will see them building on the initial trip, said Dr Asnes. “The idea is to start off with simple heart disease in children that can be treated by surgery as a ‘cure.’ That is, ‘simple’ in the United States, but in Vietnam, they are not yet able to do it. If we can get them started with what is routine here, it will lay the groundwork for more ‘complicated’ cardiac surgery in the future,” he said.

Without the support of Hearts Around the World, Dr Asnes said that he would not have been able to afford to travel to Vietnam and spend over a week there. He feels that even in that short time he was able to make somewhat of a difference to the doctors at Choray Hospital. “I think I introduced them to techniques to care for patients, with a better outcome,” said Dr Asnes.

Nancy Rollinson, APRN, Yale University School of Medicine, Pediatrics, was also a member of the team that traveled to Vietnam in November. She has traveled twice to the St George’s Hospital in Russia, but found Vietnam to be a greatly different experience.

“The biggest difference is that Vietnam is even more behind in surgical abilities and postoperative care than Russia was,” she said. Particularly in the aspects of postoperative care, said Ms Rollinson, there was not the assurance in Vietnam that proper care could be provided.

“It’s incredible what is missing,” she said, both in the areas of supplies as well as training.

Her role on the trip, geared primarily toward pediatrics, was two-fold, said Ms Rollinson. As well as providing education in the catherization lab and in the area of postoperative care, Ms Rollinson also lectured on pacemakers and arrhythmia, her specialty.

It is difficult to tell what inroads Hearts Around the World will make as time goes on, said Ms Rollinson, but the assistance of vendor support and education supported by the nonprofit will be crucial in the future of the Choray Hospital’s success.

“The most amazing thing is that you forget that there are places around the world where the things we take for granted are not available. We are talking about performing heart surgery on babies, when there is not even enough food for them as they wait for evaluation,” she said. However, it is possible to make a difference with a small amount of effort, she said, and should the opportunity arise again for a team to utilize her skills to reach the objectives of a trip, she would be happy to return.

On Tuesday, April 7, Dr Jarrett will speak at a special fundraising breakfast for Hearts Around the World at the Ethan Allen Inn in Danbury, from 7 to 9 am. Tickets are $40 per person. Reservations may be made by calling 733-3332.

 Realizing that a nonprofit organization is most effective when overhead costs are kept to a minimum, Dr and Ms Jarrett have strived to keep Hearts Around the World expenses at an absolute minimum, with nearly 100 percent of donations used strictly for its programs. “We expect to get all of the necessary services and medical supplies donated,” stated Dr Jarrett. Hearts Around the World operates through the Internet, avoiding the costs of rents, salaries, and other operating expenses.

For more information or to donate, visit hearts-aroundtheworld.org.