February 5,
Today is my third full day
in beautiful Rwanda. Here is a little background as to what has
transpired since arrival. After two long flights from North America, I
landed in Rwanda on Saturday evening. I never really saw the light of day
on Saturday, and Sunday passed mostly in a haze of jet lag. Team Heart
met in the early afternoon to review all of the cases that had been seen by the
awesome pre-visit evaluation team. We prioritized the patients for the
week which was a difficult job. Monday the fourth of February was our
first operative day. The first case was a 39-year old man who received a
new mechanical aortic valve by Drs. Oakes and Bolman. The second was a
21-year old female who received a mechanical mitral valve for her rheumatic
mitral stenosis by Drs. Matthew and Bolman. Both cases went very well,
especially considering that it was the first operative day; the kinks were
small and worked out very smoothly.
I am truly amazed at the
teamwork, dedication, knowledge and skill of everyone on Team Heart. I
guess I now know why "Team" is the leading word for our organization.
Today (Tuesday, February 5th) we started with my first cardiac surgery
case in Africa. Our patient was a 19-year old young man with severe
mitral insufficiency and tricuspid insufficiency, again from rheumatic disease.
His case was difficult because of the greatly enlarged size of his heart.
He received a mechanical mitral valve and a tricuspid valve repair with a
ring. He did have one of the largest hearts I have ever operated on,
especially for such a young man. After today we will have finished 4
cases with 12 to go. More to come.
Bruce Leavitt, MD
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