Team Heart is happy to announce, Egidia Rugwizangoga will be the first Team Heart-Global Nurse Scholar. This position is funded through a generous grant from The Medicines Company to Team Heart.

Egidia will spend two months in Rwanda, focusing on two Team Heart sponsored programs. During September, Egidia, who speaks fluent French Kinayarwandan and English, will work closely with a Boston based echo screening team to prepare elementary teachers and students for a school-age echo study.

In October, Egidia, working closely with Suellen Breakey, PHD, RN, Team Heart Nurse Educator and Patrice Nicholson, PHD, RN, MPH Brigham and Women’s International Nursing as well as Team Heart and local leaders from the Rwanda Heart Foundation and King Faisal Hospital, will follow up all patients having had surgery by Team Heart over the past 4 years paying close attention to those patients being monitored for anti-coagulation. Data to evaluate access and barriers to reliable care, will be gathered to analyze to make certain we are working together to support the patients in the years following surgery. Egidia will work closely with nursing to facilitate skill transfer, important in care of patients following cardiac surgery, since those patients require long term follow up care.

For those of you knowing Egidia, one is aware of a wonderful asset and resource she will be during the screening program, September 9-24. Born in Rwanda, she has been in the US since 1999, following the genocide. She learned English in a church basement and worked at the Brigham as an aide while attending undergraduate, where she received a Bachelors Degree in Nursing from UMass. On a previous trip, she joined Jen Neary, our lead screening, sonographer from Mass General Hospital two years ago as they visited Butare, near Egidia’s home. There they worked with Dr. Ganza to evaluate patients with rheumatic heart disease for potential surgery. This will be her fourth Team Heart trip.

She writes-

On a different note, yesterday, we visited a primary school called "Cyuga"located in remote area in the district of Gasabo. Children, parents and teachers were very receptive and looking forward to this exciting project, 285 consents were signed and we left more copies to the school Principle for those who could not come. It was dark by the time we finish, passing motorcyles and cooking fires served as sources of light since there is no electricity in the area! We had to walk a couple miles due to bad road and fragile brigdes! At some point, our van got stuck and we had to push it in middle of the night, thank God for the lifting I've been doing at Planet Fitness, those muscles were put to use!!!! We will greet the others as they begin arriving Saturday night. Each day you will meet a new person on the team introduced here!