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).

"To Medicate or Not to Medicate?" or "My Collegues Are All Drug Addicts"

You get an unbelievable amount of advice on medications and sleeping aids. Especially in an office of international travelers.

I'm not one to take medication - aside from Advil - if I don't have to. But traveling to a foreign country it probably makes sense to be prepared. So, aside from the Travel Clinic prescribed Imodium, pepto, and emergency stomach Rx, I'm going to carry a pharmacy of sinus, cold, and allergy medications.

But the sleeping "aid" is one that continues to gnaw at me. I don't have a problem sleeping. My philosophy is that when you're tired, you'll sleep. But I've been asked so many times if I'm getting a prescription for Ambien, buying melatonin, or taking Benadryll, that I'm starting to doubt myself and think maybe I should.

Sleeping on a plane sucks. There's nothing you can do to get "more" comfortable in the 21 cubic inches your $2,500 airline ticket gets you. I believe that the next "stage" in airline flight are stand up pens, like cattle. So I won't sleep on the plane. And I've traveled overseas - a lot - to Israel and have never had a real problem with jet lag. But this is farther and the work expectation is slightly different. Nothing worse than falling asleep, face first, in your dim sum... So maybe a sleeping aid would be a good idea. Normally my colleagues travel with medical personnel - doctors and nurses - and the sleep medication is free flowing. A few glasses of wine and some medication handed to you by the foremost cardiac physician in the world is a little different than a ginger ale and a pill on your own.

Then the question is - when? Do I take it on the plane to sleep? We leave Detroit at 4:30 PM and arrive in China at 7:10 PM the next day. If I sleep on the plane like normal, won't I be wide awake when I arrive at bed time? As someone said to me, nothing worse than being awake at 2:00 AM in Shanghai.

Aside from the near nuclear meltdown happening "next door", this is the one thing that is worrying me. Some of you must be world travelers - what do you think?

Here I Am World - Come Read Me

I'm off to China for 2 weeks on Saturday and at work today several people naively joked that I should do a blog about my trip. Sounds fun. And everyone will be fascinated by my perspective on traveling to, from, and in China. So what the hell. Here I am, cyber world. Take your best shot.

If you're reading this, then you're a friend or co-worker. You already know me. You know about my passion for all things Buckeye. You know I watch and read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy (and occasionally post reviews on the website Fantasy Book Reviews). You know I love spending time with and am fiercely proud of my family (did I mention my wife is a rock star guitar player for preschoolers, my daughter is an avid Justin Bieber loving book reader who is hilarious, and my son is fantastic baseball player who also happens to be a total mensch?)

So, if you're interested in a tall white man's perspective of the Far East, join me for the next few weeks. If all goes well, and people like this, maybe I'll even keep doing it.