Healing Children's Hearts in Nicaragua

Love enters the heart in friendship's disguise.  Be a friend this Valentine's Day to a child who needs Surgeons of Hope to repair his or her young heart.  We are doing something new this very week, following our highly successful echocardiography training session which took place last October.

Our three-person mission is doing great things this week at La Mascota Children's Hospital.  Dr. Emilie Carvello from the University of Maryland Medical Center is joining with Clayton Dobronyi, RN, and Danielle Lucero, Sterile Process Educator, both from Children's Hospital of Colorado.  Together they are teaching the local hospital staff of doctors and nurses in intensive sessions about Basic and Advanced Pediatric Life Support and Sterile Processing.  After their first day, they report a large number of participants, all of whom are eager to learn and thoroughly engaged as students and trainers.  In addition to learning the techniques, they are learning how to teach those techniques to others.

Surgeons of Hope President, Eduardo da Cruz, Head of Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care at Children's Hospital of Colorado, said, "We are inducing a cultural change by integrating nurses into the project.  This is a new concept in Nicaragua."  And, nurses are working and learning together with the doctors.  Truly, we are training the trainers.

While you are thinking of love on Valentine's Day, why not make a donation?  Be that friend to a child's heart.  If you make the donation on behalf of someone else through Global Giving, your honoree will receive a lovely notice from Global Giving, thereby spreading the friendship and love around a bit.

Here are some instructions to get you started:

Donate In Honor or Memory of Someone

Whenever you make a GlobalGiving donation in someone else's name, they'll receive a card from GlobalGiving with the details of the goodness done in their name. Just select "Make this donation in honor of someone" during checkout, and you'll be prompted for further information.

On one of the Surgeons of Hope Project Pages, check the box "Make this Donation in Honor of Someone?" at checkout.

You will be prompted to indicate how you would like the card sent (e-mail or postal mail), the card design, and all recipient details. You also can enter a personal message to the recipient.

Preview: Once you have entered all information, you can preview the card to see an image of what the recipient will receive.

When you have completely filled out the fields, please be sure to click the orange "Save" button.

Links:

• To learn more, go to our website

Excitement is growing about this project, both in Managua where construction has started on the new Pediatric Heart Center adjacent to La Mascota Children's Hospital and at our partner children's teaching hospitals in the U.S. and Europe.  So many things need to come together in 2012 and they are targeted to do just that.

In advance of the opening of the new Center, Surgeons of Hope is providing training and professional development to the existing La Mascota staff of doctors and nurses.  Training of the people who will go on to teach others is an essential element.  Making that training available to an even wider, expanding population remains the driving goal toward success in narrowing the gap between medical care that is routinely available in the developed world and such care that cannot even be hoped for in the emerging world.  That's where Surgeons of Hope comes in.

So, what will 2012 hold? 

Building:  The new Pediatric Heart Center will take shape as a new building to hold the most modern medical equipment.  Surgeons of Hope will be raising the funds ($2M) to acquire that "sophisticated" equipment and to have it installed in the new Center, offering two operating rooms, a catheterization lab, 20 beds, and more.

Training:  During construction, Surgeons of Hope is sending smaller teaching teams from Children's Hospital Colorado (formerly known as Denver Children's Hospital) to provide practicum sessions to La Mascota staff and local medical students in Pediatric Life Support and in hospital hygiene/sterilization.  That week-long mission is scheduled to happen in February. 

Six selected La Mascota medical staff members are receiving continuing intensive training in university hospitals in Latin America where they are working side-by-side with surgical teams on location.  They will return to La Mascota in time for the opening of the new Center.  This aspect of their training will be complemented with observational rotations in three major US children's hospitals. 

Telemedicine:  Surgeons of Hope will develop three satellite clinics (starting with one and expanding to three) in Nicaragua in 2012.  Those clinics will provide diagnosis, prevention, and follow-up for children with cardiac disease, a model for future regional sites throughout Central America and the Caribbean.  These sites will be able to identify patients in need of surgery and send those patients to the new Center in Nicaragua.  Telemedicine will allow for low-cost training using electronic communication.  Surgeons of Hope will also develop a solid, workable program for enhanced routine training and conference capability.

Please understand that all of this humanitarian progress is accomplished by volunteer medical staff from U.S. and European children's teaching hospitals.  Upwards of 85 cents of every dollar we raise goes toward our program.

Your role as a loyal donor and the role of GlobalGiving in helping us to reach you and share our news is huge for us, as we are a small organization.  Your donation has been put to work in the past; now there is more work to do in 2012.  Please remain with us on our team.  We need you and the children of Latin America need you, too.

After your donation, there is something else you can do.  Use Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about this GlobalGiving project and the great work being done in 2012.  Surgeons of Hope deserves your support and the support of your friends and family.  We remain so grateful to you, always.

Links:

• Visit our Surgeons of Hope website to learn more.