Victoria, age 11, is an active young girl who enjoys swimming, playing with her favorite dolls and hanging out with her siblings.

While she has lived with pulmonary insufficiency and has been able to walk, play and run, it was during her yearly cardiologist check-up that MRI results revealed she would need open-heart surgery to correct her leaking pulmonary valve. When a child is faced with this condition, the tiny flaps of tissue that make up a pulmonary valve are unable to oppose to each other, making the valve leaky with a substantial amount of blood coming back from the lungs back in the right side of the heart, over time weakening the heart of a young child.

Ready to face the journey ahead but still worried on what would come next, Isabel, Victoria's mother, met with Dr. David Kalfa, chief of cardiovascular surgery and co-director of the Nicklaus Children's Heart Institute, and professor of surgery and pediatrics at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, who assured Isabel that Victoria would come out of the surgery with a healthier heart and never need another open-heart surgery again. Dr. Kalfa explained he'd be using an innovative technique, the Ozaki Procedure, developed as an alternative to traditional valve replacement, where the surgeon reconstructs the patient's valve using their own pericardial tissue. Nicklaus Children's Heart Institute is the only known pediatric program in Florida to offer the procedure.

“I left the appointment with Dr. Kalfa feeling reassured and confident that Victoria's heart was in good hands,” said Isabel. “It was no coincidence that our Victoria would be treated by one of the top pediatric cardiac surgeons in the country after just recently joining Nicklaus Children's. Fate was on our side from the start.”

Following surgery day, Victoria spent three days recovering at the hospital where she was treated by nurses, doctors and an expert team of medical staff. “After the surgery, Dr. Kalfa met with my family and I to go over how successful the surgery went and how to best care for her after,” Isabel mentions. “His care was like no other, Dr. Kalfa would check up on Vicky and I every morning and every night while she was recovering.”

“I couldn't believe it, Victoria was smiling, jumping and back to her playful self just a day after her surgery,” Isabel mentions. After undergoing surgery in November, Victoria returned home to her family just in time for the holiday season.