Last November, we were honored to receive the Large Circle Award for Heart to Heart’s “contribution to the development of pediatric cardiology in Siberia.”

Born and raised in Kazakhstan, I immigrated to America in 1998. I was given the opportunity to master two languages, Russian and English. In America, ‘the Land of Opportunity’, I received an education that led to my employment at the UC Davis Medical Center.

This past October, November, and January, seventeen pediatric cardiac specialists from Heart to Heart’s partner site in Rostov-on-Don got the opportunity to observe at the Tomsk Cardiology Institute, an advanced self-sustaining Heart to Heart site in Siberia.

For the past 25 years Heart to Heart’s volunteers have been training Russian surgical teams to perform complex cardiac surgery, with an emphasis on infants and newborns.

In September 2013, we conducted our first mission to Kaliningrad, the site of our newest collaboration – our sixth in Russia.

Dr. Frank Cetta, Division Chair of Pediatric Cardiology at the Mayo Clinic, was elected to Heart to Heart’s governing board in July 2013.