Throughout 2023, Paraguayan Dr. Franciele Regiane Rohden from the General Pediatric Hospital “Niños de Acosta Ñu” obtained a six-months-training on Pediatric Cardiovascular Imaging at the Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital, Madrid – Spain, provided by Surgeons of Hope and by the support of Dr. Nancy Garay, Dr. Constancio Medrano, Dr. Enrique Maroto and Dr. Fernando Ballesteros.

Among diverse subjects, her training included Outpatient rotations where clinical consultation and transthoracic echocardiography of patients who came to the service for the first time was performed, or patients with already established cardiological diagnoses who came for review, either for clinical control or to enter the list of procedures, surgery and/or diagnostic or therapeutic catheterization.

She also carried out an internship in transesophageal echocardiography in the Pediatric Hemodynamics laboratory as well as rotations in the Fetal Echocardiography laboratory and Magnetic Resonance and Computed Tomography service.

All the above would certainly come to accomplish the training’s main objectives of improving team coordination, offering comprehensive care to patients, and supporting the doctor’s skills in terms of the various procedures that are carried out daily at General Pediatric Hospital “Niños de Acosta Ñu”.

According to Doctora Franciele Regiane, “The attending cardiologists showed willingness and camaraderie in sharing their knowledge and providing their teachings to me and the other residents who rotate in the service. I always felt a very familiar and comfortable environment working with patients and co-workers”.

We are deeply excited to see how her acquired knowledge will improve cardiology services in general.

At Surgeon of Hope, we have some great news to share. It’s with pleasure that we announce Diana Chinchilla has recently joined our team as Operations and Missions Director.

Based in Costa Rica, one of the countries where we hold a long-time history of successful missions, Diana has a solid professional journey working as commercial and operations manager for brands such as Life Fitness or Salvatore Ferragamo. In the last few years, in addition to her master’s degree in marketing and advertising, she’s been specializing on project management’s methodology. According to her “My main contribution to Surgeons of Hope will rely on strategic thinking, fundraising diversity, storytelling and a better knowledge of our audience and children”.

A great fan of gardening and mothering a 4-year-old son, for many years, she’s shared her spare time to different local communities where she supports social programs. Currently, she’s leading a personal project to collect 200 Christmas presents for a rural marginalized neighborhood this December.

We wish her a full accomplishment.

We’re certain that our patients, medical staff, donors, partners, interns, general staff, will be delighted to work with Diana. Please feel free to contact her by email at [email protected]