15min. with Dr. Kalangos
As we’re entering the second phase of easing the measures introduced to protect the population against coronavirus, the EXTRA-ordinary surgeon Professor Afksendiyos Kalangos AKA “the doctor of the poor” agreed to a 15min virtual chat.
Prof. Afksendiyos
Kalangos is a Greek-Swiss cardiovascular surgeon who saved the life
of many human beings. I first met him in 2001 at Geneva University
Hospital, where he became the Chairman of the Clinic for
Cardiovascular Surgery.
Currently he is based in Greece and was in 2016 appointed to be Chairman of the
Department of Pediatric and congenital Cardiovascular Surgery at Mitera
Hospital before joining the beginning of this year, the IASO Children’s
Hospital.
As a scientist, how do you explain the
miracle of Greece during this pandemic?
I think this miracle is due to the fact that the
government reacted very fast after the first cases of coronavirus by closing
borders, schools and locking down all the social life. At the same time, the
success of our awareness campaign reinforced the application of those measures
initiated by the government.
How important was the role of Prof.
Sotiris Tsiordas the spokesman for the gov’t re. the epidemic?
Prof. Sotiris Tsiordas is a great specialist of
infectiology at the Medical School in Athens. As the head of the health
minister committee of experts on contagious diseases, he and his team managed
very effectively the coronavirus crisis.
For me, he fulfilled the Greek society’s emotional and practical needs for
trust and made the people respect the measures.
Before Covid-19, the new tech hype was AI (artificial intelligence). But data reporting, telemedicine and conventional diagnostic were the real tools to have an impact. So where should investments go? And how can AI help a future pandemic, for instance? I am very in favor for artificial intelligence. It is true that data reporting, telemedicine and conventional diagnostic were the real tools in this pandemic. However, we cannot neglect the fact that artificial intelligence will become increasingly important in the healthcare sector for different reasons: innovations in medicine push us to evolve into a new healthcare concept which is personalized medicine. Our current system needs to become more efficient and our healthcare professionals need to be more productive by collecting and using the real world data we can develop a learning healthcare system able to play also an important role in managing healthcare cause in a more sustainable way. I think all this potential future changes will eliminate or decrease the weaknesses we faced or we are facing during this pandemic.
Many of us Dr. Kalangos miss hugging our
parents and grand-parents, which are over 65 years old. We’re only humans
after all. What do you advice us to do?
My advice is to be very careful. They have and we
have to utilize the face mask every time they or we go out of the house. At
home, the social distancing cannot function as a preventive measure. We have to
be aware that our parents and grand-parents who are over 65 years old and
especially if some of them are incapacitated by chronic illnesses are in a
higher risk of death in case of coronavirus infection.
Born in Aghios Stephanos, Istanbul in 1960; Prof. Kalangos founded the charity association Coeurs pour tous (Hearts for All) and the Kalangos foundation in Geneva (2002), before co-founding the Global Heart Network Foundation in Delaware, USA in 2011.
The Kalangos foundation has 3 fundamental goals:
- To treat children suffering from congenital and acquired cardiac diseases all around the world.
- To improve equipment and infrastructure of some existing hospitals in the developing countries to allow them to operate sick children
- To train the medical and paramedical health professionals of
those developing countries through training scholarships for example. This
third goal represents the sustainable development in the medical field
especially in the cardio-vascular field.
Prof. Kalangos and his team members under the umbrella of Kalangos Foundation has achieved since 1998: more than 15’000 operations on poor children in over 20 developing countries; over 100 professionals trained including cardiac surgeons, technicians, nurses, etc.; the opening of 5 pediatric cardiac centers in Mauritius, Georgia, Mozambique, Serbia and another one under construction in Cameroon.
A direct donation can be made through the Kalangos Foundation’s website and total transparency on how the funds are used will be provided to any donor. www.kalangosfoundation.com
Dr. Kalangos’ motto:
Love life, Feed life, Teach life, Protect
life, Serve life