Where the Hell Am I Going? (And Why Am I Going There??)

I've gotten quite a few questions about who I work for, why I'm going to China, what I'm going to do when I get there, and where I will be.

All excellent questions. I wish I knew the answers.


Who Do You Work For And What Do They Do?
I work for a 41 year old nonprofit - Children's HeartLink - which works to treat children with congenital heart defects (CHD's) in developing countries.

You should know that CHD's are the most common type of birth defect in the world and each year approximately 1 in every 120 children is born with one. In the United States and other developed countries CHD's are identified early - sometimes in utero and usually within moments of the child being born. Here, they are then whisked away and fixed within minutes of being born. There are certainly a group of children who have to have surgery a little later in life, but in the United States a child with CHD can and does live a full, normal life. Not so in developing countries.

• First, the condition is most often undetected. The child may have breathing problems, may turn blue at times, or may faint. There are a wide array of symptoms and for doctors who do not have experience or knowledge with CHD's, they can be confusing and hard to pin down.
• Second, the specialized doctors and health care teams trained to identify and treat CHD's do not exist in nearly large enough numbers. In the United States there are more than 2,500 pediatric cardiologists who treat CHD's. In India, which has a population almost 4 times the size of the United States, there are estimated to be 35-40 pediatric cardiologists.
• Third, the coverage of treatment doe snot exist in most developing countries. While a relatively cheap surgery (not counting staff time, the cost is, on average, about $3,000), the lack of specialists with knowledge and lengthy recovery time make it an expensive condition to treat. (I should say that the universal coverage of CHD's in the United States is coming under fire in the new health care legislation and there is some question as to whether all instances will be covered moving forward...)

We do our work by teaming up with the best pediatric cardiology programs in the United State, Canada, Great Britain, and Singapore  and creating long term relationships between them and pediatric cardiology programs in the developing world. We choose our sites around the world carefully - they have to have an existing program, do a high number of charity cases, be committed to development and growth, etc. We link up a volunteer institution with significant experience with a partner site and work with them to move them along the continuum of development. In some cases this means they are looking to be able to do more surgeries, thereby significantly increasing the number of children treated, and in others it means expanding their skill set to take on more complex surgeries, thus helping some of the more severe cases. In all cases, we are working with our partner sites over a 5-7 year period to develop their skill set and move them towards becoming a regional center of care and training so that they can, ultimately, turn and help their colleagues within their own country in the detection and treatment of CHD's.

The ultimate goal of Children’s HeartLink is to empower local medical professionals to prevent and treat pediatric heart disease in their own populations so that every child can receive the care he or she needs.

What Are You Doing In China?

I will be visiting our 4 partner sites in China with our VP of International programs, Estelle Brouwer. At one (Jilin Heart Hospital in Changchun) there will be a full medical team visiting and I will get to see what they do to help our partner sites. I'll also get to see surgeries - little heart surgeries - first hand. At the other sites (Chengdu, Lanzhou, and Shanghai) we will meet with hospital administrators to share our developing model and talk about our relationship. We'll also be meeting with some other nonprofits that do work in China similar to ours and also meeting some potential funders.

Where Will You Be?

The short answer - all over the Central and Eastern part. I didn't realize it until the other day, but we're flying all over China. Which says a lot. China is the most populous and fourth largest country in the world. Yet the entire thing operates under 1 time zone. Crazy.

I will be in Shanghai (East coast), Changchun (NE), Chengdu (South central), and Lanzhou (central).