Unit 2
VIDEO SCRIPT
Chris Bury: For the last ten years, Dr. Jeremy
Torstveit has spent his vacations in Sri Lanka,
the island nation near India once known as
Ceylon. Like many surgeons, he has a
reputation for being a cool, difficult, and
talented perfectionist. He is obsessive about
his life’s work: repairing heart defects in
children. In this country such operations have
become almost routine. But ten years ago, on
his first vacation to Sri Lanka, Dr. Torstveit
discovered that his specialty was virtually
unknown there. Children born with heart
defects simply died--thousands of them every
year. For this driven doctor, that was just
unacceptable. Since then, he developed a new
obsession: performing heart operations on
children who have no chance to live Without
them.
Stephenie Hollyman: Torstveit is a cardiac
surgeon who gives children born with
severe heart defects every reason to expect
a normal life.
Jeremy Torstveit: Everything’s in place in the
United States for heart surgery. So what else
can I do, you know? I don’t build roads. I
don’t teach school. This was a natural thing for
me to do.
Stephenie Hollyman: At the NationalHospital,
the waiting list for children with heart defects
Number over 2,500. Jeremy Torstveit learned about an
of this from Dr. Dudley Halpe, a colleague in
Phoenix, who is a native of Sri Lanka.
Jeremy Torstveit: He encouraged me to come and
see if ... if it was possible to operate on the
literally thousands of children that were dying
of heart disease untreated in this country.
Stephenie Hollyman: Torstveit usually comes
twice a year at his own expense, participating
in twenty to thirty operations a week as
surgeon or instructor. l\/lost of his time is now
devoted to training Sri Lankan doctors in the
lifesaving procedures. Three surgeons perform
400 operations a year, free of charge.
Tuesday, 6:00 A.M. This time, one week is all
Dr. Torstveit can spare from his busy Arizona
practice. A week to travel there, work, and fly
back, halfway around the world.
The sun is rising over the Indian Ocean. Never
mind that Torstveit has been flying for twenty~
seven hours now.
Jeremy Torstveit: Time to get going. Don't have a
lot of time to waste. And I feel fine, so I’m
ready to go.
Stephenie Hollyman: Never mind that for
Torstveit, it’s 3:00 A.M., body time. The
beleaguered staff wants a few minutes with
him, always a morale boost.
Jeremy Torstveit: Everybody you meet here is... .
that l’ve run into, that I’ve worked with . . .
everyone is so genuine that you really miss
them when you don’t see them. And they are
your family, and you want to get back and see
them. I came from a family that believed in
giving and really giving a lot. We weren’t
people that gave on Sunday. We normally gave
until it hurt. We believed in . . . in helping
people out. And there’s always a way. There’s
always a way to fincl a way to help people out.
And I think I grew up with that tradition, and
I think that I felt that I should do this.
VIDEO SCRIPT
Stephenie Hollymanz : For the last three
days, Torstveit has been trying to find the
best candidate for the first surgery
on Monday
Jeremy Torstveit: Put her name down there and
what you're going to do next to that.
Stephenie Hollyman: Heart defects often pass
detection in Sri Lanka until too late. He looks
for a child whose correction won't be
complicated, a case that, after surgery will
enjoy a quick transition through intensive care.
Torstveit finally finds his candidate, the one
child he can help the most. He selects a
farmer's daughter who has a hole in her heart.
She’s called Nadisha.
Chandama Aramasena: She's a straightforward
case. That’s why we selected that girl. And she
has waited ... waited on the waiting list for
two years.
Stephenie Hollyman: Monday 8:00 A.M. Dr.
Aramasena will perform the operation with
Dr. Torstveit assisting. This senior surgeon for
the NationalHospital trained three years at
OxfordUniversity. N adisha's father carries his
precious cargo to the operating theater from
ward twenty-five.
Dr. Perrera: . . . now we have the intravenous line
in . . .
Jeremy Torstveit: This very simple operation will
allow this child to have children, grow up,
have a normal life, statistically. And without
that, this child would be having significant
problems fairly soon. This is a very large
defect. This is why heart surgery is so
economical in the long run. This little girl
spends three or four days recovering, and
that’s... and she’s fixed forever.
Chandama Aramasena: If it is all right, go on
one. Go to thirty-two, please. Drop the off-
flow, please. Clamp it off.
Jeremy Torstveit: We’re just making sure there’s
no air inside the heart. OK, we’re going to
come off the heart-lung machine now. OK,
go ahead.
Stephanie Hollyman: The hole in Nadisha’s
heart is fixed. lt's almost time to head home.
Jeremy Torstveit: Everytime went fine.
Everything went fine. I truly believe that you
can get a ripple effect in reality, a really, truly,
tangible ripple effect. And I think you can
show other people that this can be done. You
know, what I’ve found here is that this has
been rewarding to me beyond measure. This...
the rewards have been far greater than the
sacrifices. Rabbit. Can... can she smile? The
attitude of ”Well, you know, it’s too much.
There’s too much to do" never will work. You
have to just dig in and go.
Chris Bury: Since those vacations to Sri Lanka
began ten years ago, his priority has changed
from performing surgery himself to training
the doctors and nurses there in his specialty. In
so doing, the ripple effect of his gift, his
obsession, is that much greater.
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