Nan Wang ’83, medical director for cardiothoracic surgery at San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland, California, has formed a non-profit organization, Hearts 4 Mission International (H4MI), in association with Adventist-laymen’s Services and Industries (ASI). One of the organization’s goals is to take a visiting team to perform open heart surgery in the country of Malawi.

The inspiration for H4MI began with an encounter his niece, Charlene Wang ’22, had during her fourth-year medical school rotation to Malamulo Adventist Hospital in Malawi. Dr. Charlene Wang met a young patient who was slowly dying from rheumatic mitral stenosis, but there was no availability of heart surgery in Malawi. Undaunted, Dr Charlene Wang sought help from her uncle and the Alumni Association to raise funds to send the young patient to Kenya for surgery.

A few months later, Dr. Nan Wang recruited several alumni to be on the board of this new organization, including Randall L. Bivens ’78-A and Ryan Elliot Lauer ’03, who have both participated in prior international heart surgery mission trips with the Loma Linda University Heart Team, and Tiffany C. Priester ’04, who was a missionary cardiologist serving at Blantyre Adventist Hospital (BAH) for five years.

The first trip, Nov. 1–9, was a combination of interventional cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery cases focused on rheumatic heart disease at BAH in Malawi. BAH is supported by Adventist Health International (AHI), which helped build the ICU and is currently sponsoring a GP from BAH to internal medicine and cardiology training in South Africa.

For this trip, H4MI recruited a volunteer team with over 20 participants, including two cardiothoracic surgeons, two anesthesiologists, two cardiologists, two perfusionists, two fellows, and multiple ICU and OR nurses and professionals. In addition to Drs. Wang, Lauer, and Bivens from the H4MI board, additional alumni joining the first trip include Richard D. Catalano ’76-B, Steven W. Hildebrand ’80-A, Kenneth R. Jutzy ’77-A,and Robin Y. Kim ’93. Most of the patients selected for the first treatments were from the government waiting list.

H4MI and Loma Linda University Health’s Global Health Institute hosted the Deputy Minister of Health for the country of Malawi, Honorable Halima Daud, at the recent Global Healthcare Conference, Oct. 12–15, highlighting the cooperation between H4MI (supported by ASI), BAH (supported by AHI), and the government of Malawi.