Our History - Why I Founded Russian Medical Fund

Russian Medical Fund was a gleam in my eye in 1996, when I first went to Russia with a group of California doctors called Heart to Heart. They trained the cardiac surgeons at Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, donated a lot of fancy equipment, and followed up with numerous visits. But there was a big problem.

There was a huge gap between the need for congenital heart surgery, especially in infants, and the available money (surprise). So I, a naive westerner, suggested we just write a check to buy supplies, about $2,000 per operation. Both the Russian and the American doctors thought I was crazy. At least the Russian doctors were willing to discuss the idea.

I ended up founding my own organization, which does indeed purchase supplies and equipment for open-heart surgery, over $3,000,000 so far. We bought a new heart-lung machine and other critically needed operating room equipment. We built a cardiac ICU so striking that people all over the city come just to see it. If you ever see the TV program where Leslie Stahl sees a Russian ICU and says "Oh my!"--that's what we built.

In 2001 we finished gutting and restoring the 5-room operating suite. Other projects have involved sponsoring medical exchanges, building a comprehensive medical library, and creating a patient family area that includes modern kitchen, bathroom, and laundry facilities. Staff morale is important, we’ve tried hard to keep senior surgeons from quitting to drive taxis. Before we intervened, they got $12 a surgery.

Results: heart operations have more than doubled. We are especially proud of our results in 1998, when our strategy of hard currency purchases kept the program alive despite the ruble crash. For a month after the crash, ours was the only income for the entire 600-bed children's hospital, which serves a city the size of Chicago.

Traveling to Russia 3 times a year is not for the faint of heart, sometimes it's pretty grueling. But as a mother who survived 3 teenagers I am used to difficult work. While our organization is non-sectarian, the religious beliefs that motivate my work are no secret. When interviewed for NTV and other Russian TV stations, I say that I am Christian, similar to their Orthodox believers. It's always a little scary doing foreign language interviews, trying to give answers that are sensitive to cultural differences. Relations between Russia and the U.S. are complex, but medical cooperation is one way to work for real reconciliation and peace.