1: What are you trying to accomplish?
2: What's your evidence that you can accomplish it?
3: How is it possible that you can provide an open heart surgery in Iraq for less than $1,000? Is that the full cost?
4: So is that the same thing as saying that my donation doesn't really make a difference? That the "up to 85%" funded locally by those inside Iraq is all that is really necessary to make this work?
5: Any other costs?
6: What is the bottleneck to more surgeries: money or skilled labor?
7: I'm skeptical of non-profits and charities because they always seem to be asking for more money. How can I be sure that Preemptive Love Coalition has "room for more funding" and that I'm not paying into a huge savings account, "Rainy Day Fund", or something similar?
8: Do you have enough volunteer surgeons available for unfunded Remedy Missions? (i.e., are there trips that you could fund if you had more money, or is there a labor bottleneck?)
9: Many heart surgeries require follow-up treatment (including additional surgeries). Do you have a way of providing these to patients?
10: How do you assess whether surgeries are completed competently and appropriately?
11: What is the rate of complications during and following surgery?
12: How do you assess whether surgeons are performing additional surgeries that they would have not had the funding or motivation to perform otherwise?
13: How do you assess whether surgeons are charging their patients for the surgeries you fund?
14: Do you follow up with the surgeons you've trained to assess whether they are correctly applying their training?
15: What information is available on the activities - and competence - of the surgeons you've trained?
16: Where do surgeons work after completing training? Do they serve poor patients?
17: How much do you spend each year on "program" expenses and how much on "overhead?"


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 Q: What are you trying to accomplish?

A: Train Iraqi heart surgeons and nurses so they can eradicate the backlog of tens of thousands of Iraqi children waiting in line for lifesaving heart surgery. [Back to Top]

 Q: What's your evidence that you can accomplish it?

A: Each year we continue to increase Iraq's total number of pediatric cardiac surgeries with new surgeries in Iraqi centers that would not - indeed could not - have been accomplished otherwise. Ministry of Health (MOH) officials speculate 500 surgeries were accomplished in 2009 (of which we provided 23 - 4.6% - outside the country). The addition of our 82 surgeries in FY 2010 - to the 500 baseline - for a total of 582 approximated surgeries, represents an increase created by PLC of 14% over 2009. In FY 2011 we anticipate increasing Iraq's total number of pediatric cardiac surgeries to at least 719 (or another 19% over FY 2010 directly attributable to our surgeons and our training).

Each year the local teams with which we work will become more proficient, and each year they will independently take on a larger case load than they could have the year before. None of these figures yet account for that additional output.

In March 2010 the Iraqi Ministry of Health asked us to expand our work to three additional sites. In May 2010 we began additional discussions about establishing a fellowship program in which international surgeons and nurses would take up residence in the Iraqi system to train locally for 40 weeks out of the year.

Our model does not rely strictly on volunteers because the level of need in Iraq outstrips what we could reasonably supply through volunteer labor alone. Accordingly, we set our budgets so as to actually contract the international surgical and nursing staff we need to accomplish our mission.

Sure, this increases the cost-per-mission (and thereby, cost-per-child) over early "mission" models in which volunteerism was idealized and training was not necessarily prioritized. But our contract labor + volunteerism model is inarguably the only way to create a nationwide quarterly training program and fellowships inside Iraq with international experts across approximately 6-8 surgical sites. Moreover, our model does not face the same sluggishness of learning that other surgery organizations suffer because we do not have the same rates of turnover; we have incredible consistency across our programs and missions. [Back to Top]

 Q: How is it possible that you can provide an open heart surgery in Iraq for less than $1,000? Is that the full cost?

A: The "less than $1k" numbers we routinely publish represent the amount in "program costs" we spend from our international donor money. The figure does not necessarily account for every single management, overhead, or fundraising expense.

Our total expenditures for FY 2010 were $188,919. We performed 82 surgeries during the same period for a per child total of $2,304 (though this data is a bit moot moving into 2010-11 as we abandon our very expensive "surgery exports" program(s) in Turkey, etc. and focus henceforth on more cost-effective in-country surgeries alone).

When all of our Remedy Mission partners are taken into consideration - including the Iraqi Government, medical companies that donate medicines and supplies, and local organizations - the real Remedy Mission cost to all donors is in the range of $5,400 - $7,000. Put another way, up to 85% of the total cost of a single surgical/training mission is now subsidized by local, Iraqi constituent institutions. [Back to Top]

 Q: So is that the same thing as saying that my donation doesn't really make a difference? That the "up to 85%" funded locally by those inside Iraq is all that is really necessary to make this work?

A: There is not a single site across Iraq for which our Remedy Missions are fully funded. If we fail to provide our 15-19% of the overall budget, Remedy Missions fail, surgeons and nurses do not get trained regularly, on-site audits from our international team do not happen, up to 20 children are delayed from receiving surgery, and a few may even die or become inoperable. Your role in funding the remaining 15-19% is as critical in the short term as any other entity. A single Remedy Mission is binary - it either happens or it doesn't. Your money makes it happen. But our goal is to continue to graduate all our programs so they are 100% funded locally in the next 5-10 years. [Back to Top]

 Q: Any other costs?

A: Our numbers per Remedy Mission do not account for "indirect costs," such as the cost (or value) of our volunteer medical staff from around the world, costs to local healthcare systems, the cost of a family to travel to the surgery site, the opportunity costs of lost income for families as they wait for surgery, etc. The reason we think it's important to note this here is because lifesaving is actually quite difficult. Building a pediatric cardiac surgery system for the entire country of Iraq is laborious and full of complexities. [Back to Top]

 Q: What is the bottleneck to more surgeries: money or skilled labor?

A: People often assume that the biggest need is more Iraqi heart surgeons. We could use a few more, but the real bottleneck is skilled nurses, technicians, and non-surgical physicians. A surgeon is only as good as his support staff. One of our biggest challenges is training pediatric cardiac intensive care nurses. To date, we haven't found a better model than our Remedy Missions through which we bring quarterly hands-on training to local nurses (and surgeons) in Iraq. Rather than exporting the nurses to Europe or the USA for training (whose medical systems barely resemble the Iraqi system), we train them with what they have on hand in their local environment. [Back to Top]

 Q: I'm skeptical of non-profits and charities because they always seem to be asking for more money. How can I be sure that Preemptive Love Coalition has "room for more funding" and that I'm not paying into a huge savings account, "Rainy Day Fund", or something similar?

A: For the record, we are skeptical of non-profits as well! In 2012 PLC needs $350,000 on hand at any given time to cover our cash flow needs for up to three Remedy Missions per quarter. We are still 30% under-funded against that goal. In addition to cash flow needs, we still require 15-19% funding on most of our missions after local sources contribute their portion; we have un-funded pilot programs in new cities where local doctors have been requesting our help (but where weve yet to woo local philanthropists or health directors); and we have research and social service initiatives through our Followthrough program that require funding at present because we have not yet sought local funding for those initiatives (seeing as how they relate mostly to our Monitoring & Impact Evaluation objectives). Please see our "Funding Gap" page to look deeper into our anticipated program costs, the sources of funding we are counting on, and the funding gap between the two for the next few years. [Back to Top]

 Q: Do you have enough volunteer surgeons available for unfunded Remedy Missions? (i.e., are there trips that you could fund if you had more money, or is there a labor bottleneck?)

A: Great question! We use a hybrid volunteer/staff model. Roughly 25-30% of any one of our Remedy Mission teams is employed by the International Children's Heart Foundation (typically the surgeon, scrub nurse, anesthesiologist, ICU doctor, and often a part-time ICU nurse). The remainder of the team typically comprises volunteer physicians, technicians, and nurses from across the world. Because the hardest-to-come-by positions are contract labor for us and NOT volunteers, we have never failed to run a mission for lack of personnel. We have only cancelled or turned down a request for a future mission due to lack of funding. [Back to Top]

 Q: Many heart surgeries require follow-up treatment (including additional surgeries). Do you have a way of providing these to patients?

A: Yes, we do. Our model dictates quarterly visits to each program site (a hospital inside a regional hub). Our reliance on local cardiologists ensures that the local team prioritizes and almost entirely sets the agenda for patient selection (within a development curricula) - after all, Iraqi doctors are the ones who are most intimately connected to the patients and their daily progress! When a local cardiologist sees a child who has either (1) deteriorated and requires another intervention or (2) advanced as expected to the next step of a complex, staged intervention, the child is prioritized for follow-up treatment. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeries are completed competently and appropriately?

A: Because we are a broker and play a combination administrative and financier role in the coalition of partners working in Iraq to develop pediatric cardiac care, we are able to stand in-between the local surgical team and the international surgical team (whom we contract as a third-party to train and perform surgeries in Iraq). If the local team or health directorate suspects a lack of competence in the international team, a cavalier attitude, or a single poor judgement call, our role is to be the go-between - to be the advocate for the local healthcare providers vis-a-vis the international surgical team.

Similarly, if the international surgical team feels pushed by the local surgical team to perform procedures with which they are uncomfortable or for which they think the local system is ill-prepared, they are able to refuse children for surgery and/or use us (PLC) as a go-between.

The checks-and-balance between the two teams helps us ensure surgeries are performed in a competent, appropriate manner. [Back to Top]

 Q: What is the rate of complications during and following surgery?

A: We report our in-hospital and 60-day mortality after each Remedy Mission. You can finds those numbers here. We also produce reports after each Remedy Mission detailing the trip, including data on intraoperative complications, post-operative complications, and mortality. You can find those reports here. We are also deliberately raising the funds necessary to help us bring our various heart hospitals into compliance with the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Surgery in Developing Countries. If this kind of quality improvement and reporting initiative interests you, we are currently looking for financial partners for our Followthrough program. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeons are performing additional surgeries that they would have not had the funding or motivation to perform otherwise?

A: Pediatric heart surgery in Iraq is almost nonexistent without our work. There are two active programs for relatively simple surgeries (one in Erbil and one in Baghdad). Local surgeons claim that combined they perform no more than a few hundred pediatric surgeries a year. In every location where we work, pediatric heart surgery is effectively nonexistent. Therefore, every surgery performed at our program sites (both when we are present and when we are not) are "additional surgeries" that they would not have had the SKILL to perform without the FUNDING we employed to train them in their local environment. [Back to Top]

 Q: How do you assess whether surgeons are charging their patients for the surgeries you fund?

A: Because we work in public (government) hospitals - and because healthcare in Iraq is provided almost entirely free of charge - it is widely known that any cardiologist, surgeon, or administrator seeking compensation for services is acting outside of Iraqi law. [Back to Top]

 Q: Do you follow up with the surgeons you've trained to assess whether they are correctly applying their training?

A: We see them quarterly in their local environment and perform real-time audits of their skills, recollection of past training, application of new techniques, etc. Additionally, our international surgeon remains on call at any time via phone, Skype, or email for consultation. [Back to Top]

 Q: What information is available on the activities - and competence - of the surgeons you've trained?

A: Because our Remedy Mission training program only began in late 2010 - and pediatric heart surgery at our sites across Iraq is the same age - there is still relatively little independent practice to report, and therefore little data on the activities and competence of our surgeons and their teams. But as they begin performing more surgeries independently, we are trying to align each site/surgical team with the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Surgery in Developing Countries (a data collection and tracking initiative of Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard University). [Back to Top]

 Q: Where do surgeons work after completing training? Do they serve poor patients?

A: As of Q2 2011 there was only one private hospital in Iraq (to our knowledge) providing pediatric heart surgery (and those surgeries were on the lower end of the complexity scale). Our work does not necessarily mean to exclude private hospitals as they continue to come online and become viable options, but at present the government system has a better equipped foundation for training local surgical teams. As we look to fully graduate our local surgical teams in the next 5-10 years, we imagine that most of them will stay in the public sector for all of the stability, pensions, and benefits of loyalty provided to those who stick with it. But, undoubtedly, some will seek positions at private hospitals (assuming private hospitals are willing to invest in the requisite capital purchases necessary to establish a credible program). In the public sector, rich and poor are served alike. In the private sector, poorer patients would be at an obvious disadvantage. [Back to Top]

 Q: How much do you spend each year on "program" expenses and how much on "overhead?"

A: As a rule, we do not adhere to the model that claims that "overhead" is somehow bad and "program" is somehow good. There are very bad program expenses. There are overhead expenses that are excellent investments. We agree with Paul Brest, President of the Hewlett Foundation, when he said, "Achieving a low overhead ratio drives many charities to behaviors that make them less effective and means more, not less, wasted dollars." Therefore, we spend as much on overhead as we need to accomplish our mission. The mission itself is our North Star - not arbitrary (even harmful) standards about overhead-vs-program expenditures. For the record, however, you can find a current pie chart of our expenditures here (and if you're into that sort of thing, you'll probably be impressed!). [Back to Top]

Jeremy Courtney Founder, Executive Director Twitter: @Jeremy_Courtney

“I'd love to hear any critique or questions you might have!”

DROP A NOTE OR DONATION BY MAIL: Preemptive Love Coalition 1300 Darbyton Dr. Hewitt, TX 76643 GIVE BY PHONE: To make a gift over the phone, using your credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover), please call +1 (806) 853-9131 during normal business hours. IRAQ OFFICE: +964 770-355-6298 (local)

Zombies, Baby Blood, And The Call of Duty To Love Our Neighbor

January 22, 2013 by matt · Leave a Comment 

I fidgeted on my stool, trying to focus in spite of the noise.

Off-duty doctors huddled nearby. They were glued to a Jason Statham movie, awaiting his next kill.

My stomach churned. Between the cigarettes and the high-volumed intensity characteristic of blown out Iraqi speakers, I honestly couldn’t take one more head-shot.

BANG!

The one-liner is delivered and my friends rumble their approval, scooting their chairs closer to the flat-screen. I snapped my computer lid shut and retreated—nauseated—as more thunder echoed be behind me.

Half an hour later, I stood in an O.R. filming doctors as they pulled blood from a beautiful baby boy named Abdul before his heart operation. In a way, Abdul’s blood and shrieking made Statham’s flick seem gore-free, but arriving in the O.R. actually helped settle my stomach.

Somehow this was different, and I began to realize it wasn’t about blood.

It was the violence.

All of this happened on my fourth day in the city of Fallujah—the medical mission progressed, and spirits were high. But I couldn’t stop thinking about my physiological reaction to that movie. It’s hard to pin-point why, exactly, but my body and mind can no longer handle violent media.

Photo Credit: “Six Days In Fallujah“, Atomic Games

In college, violent movies and games like Call of Duty never really affected me—they were just fun past-times. But something about being in Fallujah, with all its bombed-out buildings and birth defects… it got too real, too fast.

During research for a video I was making, I watched a ton of archived footage from the battles that happened in Fallujah. The helmet-mounted cameras made the killings almost indistinguishable from my favorite 1st person shooter games—except these were real.

The snarky comments made by soldiers, the way both sides treated prisoners and dead bodies, and all the blood. So much blood. Nobody was respawning after these fights—no ‘extra lives.’

I want to be clear: this post is not about boycotting anything—I’m not saying we should all go tee up our action movies and XBOX games and golf club them to oblivion.

I’m just asking a simple question: at what point have we lost touch with reality? At what point did I lose touch?

As a person who strives to follow Jesus Christ and his teachings, I look at the “Sermon on the Mount” and wonder how I got where I am. Jesus stood up and taught radical enemy-love, pain-absorption over pain-reciprocation, and the happiness of peacemakers. Am I training myself toward those things?

Am I preparing my heart to love the limbless family members who brought their sick, war-stricken children into the hospital for surgery? What if their child dies in the ICU and they blame or even try to hurt me—how have I prepared myself to respond?

Or what about the suicidal American solders—more of whom have died at home than on the battle field—am I ready to love them, given the chance?

This is what we mean when we say “preemptive love,” and, if it doesn’t cost me anything, I have to wonder whether it’s even real.

During a recent gaming spree, my wife asked me, “Is ‘Nazi Zombie Mode’ just an excuse to kill things without feeling bad?” She was right, I want it both ways.

Writing endless blog posts that call people to love their perceived enemies while using a broken-off bayonet to hack mine to pieces in a video game really doesn’t add up, regardless of whether or not the game is ‘real.’

Photo Credit: Karim Sahib, AFP

When you think of Fallujah, you might remember the murdered mercenaries in 2004. How did you react when you saw the charred bodies?

With that in mind, don’t you find it disturbing how excited my Muslim friends in Fallujah were by the heart-numbing gore on the screen in front of them?

Don’t you find it disturbing how many Christians in America enjoy the same kinds of entertainment?

What can we do to prepare ourselves to love when it’s difficult? I would encourage you to start by considering the paraphrased teaching from Jesus below—how far should we take these words? Then email me your thoughts, or connect with me via PLC’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. If you disagree, please share why—I promise not to attack you with a broken-off bayonet.

###

“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves.”

Watch Our Animated Manifesto!

April 24, 2012 by matt · Comments Off 

Over the last few months we’ve seen an incredible influx of new readers and supporters, so it seemed good to put our most informative and successful video to-date back on the blog.

Whether you’re brand new or if you’ve been here a hundred times, watch it and let me know your reaction. Is it naive? Spot-on? Over-the-top? Email me!

How I Was Totally Wrong About Dads In Iraq

February 28, 2012 by matt · Comments Off 

At best, fathers in Iraq are semi-absent. At worst they’re fully absent, off spending time with friends and neglecting their family.

Or at least that’s what I thought two weeks ago.

Before Remedy Mission IX, my perceptions of Iraqi dads were pretty negative. And they weren’t entirely unfounded. Having lived in Iraq for a year now, I’ve met a number of dads who spend a lot of time away from their family, and it was hard for me to understand.

So I assumed that these fathers didn’t care. Why else would they be so absent?

The key word in that last paragraph, though, is “assumed.” I applied my own cultural understanding to contexts that demanded further explanation!

What if these fathers are away because that’s how much they have to work to put food on the table? What if they’re ashamed to come home because they can’t put food on the table? How could the handful of fathers I know here even begin to represent all of them? And this is probably most important question: since when did I become the time-keeper for fathers in Iraq?

I started asking questions like this at the beginning of our ninth Remedy Mission after I watched an Iraqi father cry over his child’s desperate need for surgery. It threw me off, and I thought he was the rarest man in Iraq I’d ever met.

But then another man wept for joy in front of me that same day when his child was accepted for surgery.

One father was able to calm his shrieking son just by whispering sweetly in the child’s ear. The boy was even giggling by the end of his echo!

Then another man wouldn’t stop holding his daughter after surgery, as though she might break if he let go.

One dad begged me for more photos of his child in surgery—each new glimpse bringing him to tears!

Another persistent father was constantly fretting over his daughter and would grab my sleeve and ask me questions like “Is it OK that she is coughing a lot?” or “When can she eat? How much? What should we give her? When?!”

One father enthusiastically shared his son’s story on-camera.

And, for me, this became the theme of Remedy Mission IX: fathers who desperately love their sons and daughters.

I’m honored to have met them. They changed my perspectives for the better and showed me something beautiful.

VIDEO: Watch Jeremy Courtney Speak At TEDxBaghdad!

February 1, 2012 by matt · Comments Off 

Iraq’s first-ever TEDx event happened in Baghdad and, as the only westerner to attend TEDxBaghdad’s inaugural conference, it was an honor for us to have Jeremy attend as a speaker.

Jeremy spoke on the concept of ‘preemptive love’ and its ability to heal, reconcile and restore people to right relationship with one another. If you’re having trouble loading the video above, just click here.

Meet Ali!

January 15, 2012 by Cody · Comments Off 

A lot of you met Ali already, when he welcomed you to Remedy.

Whether he’ll admit it or not, he’s the ringleader and the brains behind The Fantastic Five. When Ali and The Fantastic Five aren’t by my side, it usually means I’m in the OR or in a meeting, in which case Ali will patiently sit right outside the door separating us. Just last night he called me over a dozen times on my phone, asking how I was doing and exhausting all of the Arabic I know.

What excites me the most about my friend Ali, though, is what he wants to be when he grows up. He wants to become a heart surgeon.

Yesterday we sat down and talked about his heart defect and I asked him why he wanted to become a heart surgeon. He responded, “I want to save others like me.”

If all goes well, Ali is just days away from his lifesaving heart surgery, where he’ll be saved by a heart surgeon and his team. I asked Ali if he’s excited for his surgery and he gave me a thumbs up and said “Yes – Yes!”

Ali is one day closer to being saved and getting the chance to save others…stay tuned!

Our Partners:

Iraq Sees Its Second Arterial Switch—Ever!

January 14, 2012 by Cody · Comments Off 

Baby Ridha was born just 19 days ago. She may not be old enough to keep up with The Fantastic Five, but she was born at the perfect time for the surgeons to save her life. By the time Remedy arrived, Ridha’s heart was at the perfect developmental stage to be fixed, making her the 2nd (and the youngest!) baby to ever receive an arterial switch in Iraq!

Our Partners:

In the News: “Rebuilt Iraq hospital plans surgery on infants”

September 1, 2011 by Craig · Leave a Comment 

Photo credit: AFP

A hospital in Iraq is back up on its feet after years of getting knocked down and now it’s better and bigger than ever!

Rebuilt after many years of violence in Iraq, the Ibn al-Bitar Hospital for Cardiac Surgery in Baghdad is beginning a new program to teach its doctors how to better operate on children who need heart surgery.

“”Until now, we have not been able to conduct heart surgery on infants,’ said Doctor Hussein Ali al-Hilli, director of the Ibn Bitar Hospital for Cardiac Surgery in Baghdad.

‘We receive 80 children a day with various heart-related birth defects that we cannot treat. We need three years to learn because such procedures are complicated,’ he added.”

Want to know more about this amazing project? Check out the full story here and tell us what you think in the comments section below!

Our Animated Manifesto

August 5, 2011 by Ted · 1 Comment 

Allow me to introduce PLC’s newest video!

If you’re unfamiliar with our work, we consider this our manifesto. Everything we do boils down to this belief: reconciliation happens through healing.

With your help, that which has been destroyed and ‘unmade’ can be rebuilt. It can be healed.

—

For all you video connoisseurs, what did you think? Give us some feedback in the comments section below, or connect with us on Vimeo.

Noor Is Heading Into Surgery!

July 4, 2011 by Cody · Comments Off 

Noor’s wait is over!

She’s made it into the operating room and the doctors are hard at work making sure that they send Noor away with a strong and healthy heart!

If they’re able to accomplish all they hope to accomplish with Noor, it will be the 9th lifesaving heart surgery this trip.

Thanks for making this possible! More news to come…

Our Partners:

3 Reasons For "In A Word" Mid-Week Photos

June 12, 2011 by Liz · Comments Off 

For a month now we've posted mid-week photos titled “In a Word,” and we've received some great feedback from you guys.

We want you to know that these aren't just pretty pictures, they're tools to help as all build an understanding of Iraq through the artists who live here.

We know you care about the future of Iraq, the kids and the training of nurses and doctors, but we want to offer you even more perspectives.

So here are 3 reasons we believe “In A Word” matters:

1. Images can be used to promote peace.
“Peace is waged when a child is served, a voice is heard, a story is told, a dialogue is created, and a community is engaged.”

We're waging peace when we LISTEN to and TELL a story about Iraq, kids with CHD, local healthcare, local solutions (i.e. politicians, donors, doctors, etc.), Muslim and Eastern perspectives, Christian and Western perspectives, the war, etc. These photos give us the opportunity to engage another community. They tell stories and create dialogue.
They're opportunities for us to understand.

2. We live among the people here.
We work with them, care for them, argue with them – we love them. And many of you have expressed interest in what those things look like here, so “In A Word” is our way of helping you visualize our day-to-day. It helps our families, friends and supporters 'come around', and for a few seconds, that makes us feel like you aren't an ocean away.

3. It's a platform for artists.
These Iraqi and Kurdish artists are unsung heroes, and their work deserves to be showed off and shared. They show their people that beauty can bring hope and truth in the midst of devastation.

“In A Word” is a forum – a sounding board – where artists can show off their work and prove emphatically: we're here, and we're talented.

Do you have any photos that you'd like to submit for an “In A Word” midweek post? If so send to liz@preemptivelove.org, subject “In A Word”

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