MEDICAL MISSION

Heart Trust Inc.

Written by Caitlin Smith

Breaking Social Disadvantages for Teenage Moms

Home to one of the world's earliest and greatest civilizations, Monica Patino and her team traveled to Cairo Egypt  to work with Al Nas Children's hospital pediatric cardiac ICU in October 2022. Egypt is more than pyramids and pharaohs, it has a wonderful community of people who hope to make a difference in their local communities through healthcare. MDF Instruments is proud to be partnered with Heart Trust Inc. on this most recent mission with a donation of a variety of stethoscopes and blood pressure monitors to support their recent mission.

Monica Patino is part of the team as a Cardiac Intensive Care Nurse and Travel Nurse. Monica let us know there were some setbacks with the planning of the trip, however this definitely did not stop her motivation to spread wellness ! After the confirmation of their trip date, there was no hesitation and that initiated the green light to begin their journey. 

Monica shared some details of the work her team was able to accomplish after their mission was completed . She explains that they  were able to “teach heart and breath sounds to nurses since the physicians are the ones who mainly do this assessment”. Monica also expressed her gratitude for the MDF contribution of instruments and how they helped “immensely and felt honored to be able to provide these resources to the local hospital”. Since there were many different aged children , we included pediatric, adult, and neonatal stethoscopes for their trip.  The neonatal stethoscopes were confirmed to be especially helpful in the assessment of the malnutritioned infants who are very tiny and fragile.

On this mission they were able to travel with a versatile team of  30. Carrying two seasoned cardiac surgeons, an electrophysiologist, an interventional radiologists, respiratory therapists, nurses, ICU doctors, perfusionists, anesthesiologists, CRNAs and as well as Biomedical engineers and a nutritionists. This enables an advantage to the ease of the trip and for the patients. The success speaks for itself as they performed 18 open heart surgeries, 3 interventional catheterizations and 18 ablations.  These did not include the 39 procedures that were assessed at their cardiac program through bedside education as well as in conference style for all disciplines.

“By working hand-in-hand with local medical professionals, we seek to improve the legacy of care provided to impoverished children with congenital heart defects. Our hope is that Heart Trust's contribution will positively impact the level of healthcare and improve the medical outcomes and lives of many children to come, long after our team has departed.” - Monica Patino

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