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Romania, 2005
Day One: The New Echodoppler Arrives
BUCHAREST, ROMANIA (May 12, 2005) - We arrived in Bucharest today from America with the new Acuson
Cypress cardiac echodoppler donated by Siemens for the pediatric cardiologists at the Institute of Cardiovascular
Disease at the Clinic Fundeni Hospital. It's a high-tech portable machine for Romanian doctors to use while treating
children with highly-complicated heart birth defects and other life-threatening diseases which require sophisticated
and accurate ultrasound diagnostics in order to provide the appropriate and immediate care. Bradley N. Stanton,
chairman of the charity Gift Of Life International, and I hand-carried the Cypress from the United States to
Bucharest in order to present it to Dr. Alin Nicolescu M.D. (above), who is also the director of the White-Yellow
Cross Foundation here in Bucharest.
Dr. Nicolescu and his wife, Madalina, and his daughters Malina, 6, and Mara, 3 (at right), hosted us for
dinner at their flat and afterwards we got the echodoppler out of the box so that Dr. Alin could set it up and
make sure that everything works fine. He said that he had three ready patients to practice on, his wife and
children. He tested the machine on them after Brad and I went back to our flat, and the echodoppler worked
perfectly. Dr. Alin is extremely pleased to finally have this valuable diagnostic tool for his patients.
This dedicated and talented Romanian pediatric cardiologist was just like a kid at Christmas tonight, and
Brad and I were very happy to see his joy. Later in the evening he went through the documentation and set
the profiles on the machine so that it would be ready for use on the "real" patients tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow we'll get to see Dr. Alin using the echodoppler on his outpatients, and on some children
who have been sent to him for a diagnosis, and on children who have already had surgery who now need a
follow-up examination. Until now, without the echodoppler, there was no way for Dr. Alin to do this at
the clinic, to see inside the children's hearts, and to be able to tell the parents and other doctors
about their condition right away. This echodoppler is a very, very valuable tool in his hands, and it
will greatly improve his ability to care for his patients.
We went back to the nearby flat that Dr. Alin got for us very tired, but
very, very pleased. -- Donald Winslow
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