Article Photos

As a Registered Nurse, Marshall High School graduate Lisa Belch makes a difference on a daily basis, and her impact has extended beyond the work she's done in the United States.

Belch recently traveled to Brazil to help surgeons perform delicate heart surgery on children who otherwise wouldn't have gotten it.

"One in every 100 children are born with a congenital heart defect world-wide," said Belch, a Registered Nurse in the cardiac surgery Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, part of the Mayo Clinic. "Until I got into this, I didn't realize how common it is."

After graduating from MHS in 1987, Belch served in the Navy. She earned her nursing degree from South Dakota State University in Brookings, S.D., and has worked at St. Mary's Hospital for nine years.

Belch had heard about the trips that Dr. Joe Dearani, one of the pediatric cardiac surgeons she works for, had been making for 15 years. Dearani is the medical director for Children's HeartLink.

"I think Children's HeartLink is an extremely important organization," Belch said. "The lengths they go through to organize a trip like this are incredible. They make such an impact on these host cities. These missions have a couple of objectives: the first is to teach and the second is to heal.

"I applied because he takes these trips quite frequently," Belch said. "I always try to give back. That's something our parents (Mike and Lorraine Weverka of Marshall) tried to instill in us as kids."

In addition to her work in the cardiac ICU, "I have speciality training in ECMO cardiac surgery at St. Mary's," Belch said.

She earned a place on the 10-person team, which included three doctors (one was the surgeon), four nurses, one respiratory therapist, and two operating room staff members.

To make the nine-day trip from Sept. 19-27, Belch left behind her husband, Bill, and their three sons, ages 11 to 15.

"They did very well," she said of her family. "They were happy to see me (return home)."

It is a trip Belch would take again.

"I'm passionate about children's congenital heart disease and I thought this would be a great opportunity to make a difference in underprivileged communities," she said. "You can do something about it and they can have normal lives - grow up and have children and have full lives. The quality of life is the most gratifying thing for me."

The team traveled to Sao Jose de Rio Preto, Brazil, "in the middle of Brazil, about two hours from Rio de Janeiro," Belch said, and performed seven surgeries on children ranging in age from one to 13 years old at the Hospital de Base, working with Dr. Ulisses Croti, the Brazilian pediatric cardiac surgeon, and his team.

"The surgeries we did were Tetralogy of Fallot, Pulmonary Atresia, Coarctation of the Aorta, Atrial Septal Defect, Aortic Stenosis," Belch said. The conditions included defects of the valves and septum of the heart, and aortic and arterial constriction so the blood has a hard time getting through.

"A third of all congenital heart patients do not survive past the age of one, if not treated," Belch said.

"After we left, we received an update that all the kids were fine and were discharged from the ICU about a week or so after we left. All successful surgeries!" Belch said.

Belch came away with a respect for the native medical personnel.

"It was really inspiring to see their passion and dedication," Belch said. "They are just such a very welcoming and open, grateful, passionate people. When we came down there, their hospitality was nothing we could match here. They kept saying how they wanted to be like us and we, in turn, were saying, 'We wish we could be like you.'

"Very appreciative of our services and suggestions," Belch said of the local people she worked with. "They would just do anything to make things better for their patients."

Belch noticed it was much more difficult for Brazilian nurses than American ones.

"They staff their ICUs with only one nurse to oversee the technicians," Belch explained. "The techs only have one year of training and take care of one or two patients. The nurses have 4-year degrees, but because the hospitals can't afford to pay their already small salaries, they hire techs to care for the patients. The nurse could have to watch over 12 critical kids in the ICU. In the States we have one to two patients we care for. Oftentimes, the doctors and nurses work at multiple facilities and that was humbling for us."

While there, Belch and her group got to tour the new children's hospital being built by government officials next to the Hospital de Base.

"Dr. Croti said things are very political down there, but he is happy to be getting a new hospital for the kids," Belch said.

"It's more of socialist medicine, where the government pays," Belch explained. "Without the government helping them, these children would never have been able to afford these surgeries."

"These countries just do not have the resources we do in America," Belch said. "Yet they are very passionate about what they do. It's a labor of love."