Cardiologist Takes Children to Heart

His friends and colleagues call him a miracle worker. But Dr. Alvaro Galindo, a UCLA pediatric cardiologist who returned Saturday from a humanitarian mission to Russia, said his involvement stems from his love of children.

“If you can help a child overcome a difficulty, they have a future,” said Galindo, who lives in Encino. “I can’t say no to an offer to help kids. It’s hard not to get drawn into it.”

On a lecture tour in Moscow last December, Galindo was asked by doctors from the prestigious Bakulev Heart Institute to take a group of UCLA heart specialists to the Russian medical facility this fall to demonstrate how the American team approached pediatric cardiac care.

Galindo, 42, and nine other heart specialists arrived in Moscow on Oct. 2, equipped with boxes of medicines, sutures, heart valves, oxygenators for bypass machines, plus years of experience in saving the lives of babies born with heart defects.

The group, which Galindo refers to as the “Noah’s Ark Team,” was composed of two surgeons, two anesthesiologists, two cardiologists, nurses and a bypass-machine specialist. They performed five complex surgeries during their seven-day stay.

Their first patient was a tiny 3-month-old boy with a severe heart defect. Despite a late diagnosis and lack of drugs to maintain him until surgery, the baby pulled through and is expected to fully recover.

“Dr. Galindo is like a miracle worker,” said Russian actor Rodion Nahapetov, co-founder of the Nahapetov Friendship Foundation, a nonprofit group that organizes medical trips between the United States and the former Soviet Union. “He is very quiet and modest, and he knows how to teach without hurting one’s ego. That is his greatest quality.”

The two met several years ago when Nahapetov took an ailing Russian child to the UCLA Medical Center. Galindo and colleague Dr. Hillel Laks treated the child at no cost. Through the Nahapetov Friendship Foundation and the Heart of a Child Foundation, Galindo has made three trips to Russia.

“This man has an extremely big heart,” said Kathleen Hunt, the UCLA director of cardiodiagnostics who accompanied Galindo to Russia last week. “I know some of those kids wouldn’t have made it without his efforts.”

Galindo, the married father of three sons, was exposed to medicine from an early age. His father, an anesthesiologist, pursued a career that took the family to several North American cities.

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Galindo joined the UCLA pediatric cardiology department in 1987, after earning his medical degree from the University of Miami. He is in charge of UCLA’s catheterization laboratory. He also treats young heart transplant patients and is an intensive-care physician.

“I feel good about the work I’ve done in Russia,” Galindo said. “We took on challenging cases and all worked well together under conditions where we had to compromise a lot. We got to show each other how we work. You can’t ask for much more in one week.”