Surgeons of Hope Foundation

Surgeons of Hope strives to create a world in which every infant and child with a damaged heart has an equal opportunity to receive life-saving surgery.

While the incidence of congenital heart defects is about 8/1000 living births everywhere in the world, every year about 90% of the one million children born with a congenital heart defect do not have access to care or only receive suboptimal care.

The World Society of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery estimates that there is one congenital heart surgeon for every 3.5 million individuals in Europe and North America, but only one for every 6.5 millions in South America, one for every 25 millions in Asia and one for every 38 millions in Africa

SoH does not measure its impact by the number of successful operations of any given mission, but by the successful operations that local, trained colleagues perform after the missions depart.

The organization's motto is: “It’s not what we bring. It’s what we leave behind.”

As such, SoH’s strategy is three-pronged:

1. Cure: organizes and deploys volunteer medical teams to conduct several surgeries
2. Cultivate: SoH trains local teams in knowledge and skills via onsite and offsite training and telemedicine covering topics like surgical techniques, resuscitation, echocardiography, and sterilization
3. Construct: and equip medical facilities in communities in need