Rotary
Club of Santa Monica
"2001/2002 - A Rotary
Odyssey"
Rota-Monica
ISSUE NO. 41 May
17, 2002 OUR 80th
YEAR
ww.RotaryClubofSantaMonica.org
CAN HE GIVE US ARTIFICIAL HEARTS?
A human heart is about the size of a clenched
fist. We usually think of it as a single organ, but actually it is two pumps,
each with two chambers. Veins and arteries are connected to it. Through them
blood rushes in and out as the heart clenches and unclenches, governed by a kind
of natural spark plug or pacemaker.
Gradually, surgeons have learned to mend or
replace various parts of this essential organ without killing the patient. Now
they’re talking about removing the heart entirely and replacing it with an
artificial one.
One of the leaders of this fantastic talk is
our speaker this Friday – Dr. Hillel Laks, chief investigator of UCLA’s Total
Artificial Heart Program. He joined UCLA faculty in 1984, after a stint as Yale
University’s director of pediatric cardiac surgery.
Dr. Laks is a South African. He was an honor
graduate of a medical school in Johannesburg, then worked five years at Harvard
University’s two teaching hospitals. At Yale and UCLA he pioneered treatments
for severe heart ailments. He repaired the hearts of very old and very young
patients, traveling to Russia, Peru, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. He has
published 300 articles about his surgical innovations. “I’m excited about the
potential for implantable devices and the artificial heart, which will change
the entire treatment for severe heart failure,” he has written.
Dr. Laks often works 15 hours a day at UCLA
yet finds time for horseback riding and scuba diving, and is active in the Young
Israel of Beverly Hills Synagogue. He and his wife have three grown children.
THE LADY FROM LA JOLLA
How much difference CAN ONE Rotarian make?
Sometimes a huge difference, if the Rotarian happens to be as energetic and
persuasive as Fary Moini.
Fary was born in what used to be Persia but is
now Iran. She knew from childhood that she enjoyed helping distressed people.
So she took training as a nurse and teacher. But schools and hospitals were
poorly run in that part of the world. She accomplished little. She decided
she’d rather be in a country where more people worked together for the common
good.
In 1983 she immigrated to the United States
and went to work in a department store. As years passed, she prospered. She
now owns two formalwear stores in San Diego. Meanwhile she looked around for a
civic organization where she could be useful. She joined the Rotary Club of La
Jolla, and worked on various committees. But few people seemed to need much
help in La Jolla or even in San Diego.
One day last year she saw television footage
of a homeless Afghan mother and her little girl, running barefoot through
rubble. They spoke her native language. Their stories touched her heart. Two
huge refugee camps along the border were in misery, she realized. They had
neither heat nor clean water.
What could she do? Nothing much, she thought
at first. Then she realized that she could journey to the camps herself for a
few weeks. And maybe she could stir up even more action by Pakistan’s 84 Rotary
clubs. (In February the club members had swarmed into refugee camps for three
days of immunizing children against polio.)
She talked to fellow Rotarians in La Jolla.
They caught a spark from her. They raised enough money to buy a generator, hot
water tank, and an ambulance to carry the sickest patients to the hospital in
Peshawar.
They helped her get in touch with RI’s Rotary
Foundation. Its Afghan Refugee Relief Effort Committee shipped thousands of
blankets, shoes, kerosene lamps and medical equipment to the camps. By the time
Fary Moini herself arrived in Peshawar, tons of supplies and equipment were
coming from Rotary.
For two months, starting last October, Fary
lived in the home of a past president of the Rotary Club in Peshawar. Two days
every week she worked as a nurse in the tents and shacks of the camps. The
presence of an American volunteer electrified nearby Rotary clubs, which set up
a bank account to buy food weekly for the camps.
The Rotarian sent a photographer to take color
pictures of Fary’s work in the camps, and published a four-page report in the
May issue. It shows what one determined Rotarian can accomplish far away from
home.
WHAT’S DOING IN ROTARY’S WORLD
Rotary’s campaign to wipe out polio was
stalled in northern India. Families were suspicious of the vaccines, and they
suspected that government health workers were conspiring against them in some
mysterious way. Many of these families couldn’t read.
Here was a problem that Rotary’s vaunted
prowess at fund-raising couldn’t solve. So Rotarians hit the streets and went
house-to-house, hoping to talk families into changing their minds. This didn’t
work very well – how often does someone change his mind because somebody talks
to him? – but it gave the Rotarians ideas. “We can make a video,” they
suggested. “Show children being immunized, and explain how this can save them
from being crippled.” They developed a “video van” and sent it into
neighborhoods, which distrusted the polio campaign. Now the anti-government
groups are letting Rotary’s health workers reach children and put drops of the
vaccine on their tongues. Read all about it in the current Rotarian, pages
20-25.
The first Rotary club in the United Arab
Emirates was chartered in Dubai in March. The new club has 25 members, and
brings our net growth for this year to 52,774. Details on pages 14 and 28 of
the current Rotarian.
Thousands of coins that will soon be worthless
are stashed in pockets and dresser drawers. These are the coins of 12 national
currencies being displaced by the euro, Europe’s new coinage. The Rotary Club
of Peronne, France, saw a chance to turn this spare change into a healthy sum
for a good cause. “Let’s set out small collection banks,” their leaders
suggested. Within the district, 32 Rotary clubs signed up to help. The idea
spread fast as the clubs persuaded schools and offices to set out the miniature
banks. Within a few months more than 10,000 of the little banks were collecting
coins. The coins will be shipped to the Rotary Club of Peronne, where they will
be sorted. Then trustworthy individuals will visit each country’s central bank
and exchange them for euros, thus avoiding transaction fees. The total amount
raised will be used to help children of developing countries who need medical
services in France. See page 39.
Leaving the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club
near the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru, two longtime Rotarians stopped to help two
police officers trying to put out a car fire. A few seconds later a bomb inside
the car exploded, killing the Rotarians and six others. See page 3.
WHAT’S AHEAD ON FRIDAYS
