2024 Heart to Heart Grant Recipient Celebrations
November 2024 brought Alpha Phi Foundation to Missouri to celebrate the two Heart to Heart Grant Recipients of the year: The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital and University of Missouri. Local alumnae and collegiate members were invited to attend the festivities and learn from both grant recipients in St. Louis and Columbia.
Starting in St. Louis, members were led on a private laboratory tour by Dr. Mohamed Zayed, principal investigator of The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s Clinical Heart to Heart Grant. They got an inside look at where clinical bench research takes place at a world-class institution, got to view lab equipment that researchers regularly utilize, and learned about what will take place in Dr. Zayed’s project.
Following the tour, Dr. Zayed gave a Presentation of Research on his project “cFAS Blood Biomarker to Diagnose Peripheral Arterial Disease in Women”, where he broke down complex science into digestible knowledge. “Women are disproportionately affected by peripheral arterial disease”, said Dr. Zayed, “but this could be prevented [in 80% of cases] if diagnosed early”. The ultimate goal of Dr. Zayed’s research is to make testing for the cFAS blood biomarker more standard, as it can be determined through a blood test as simple as the one utilized to check cholesterol levels. This would allow for earlier diagnosis of this disease, which in turn would reduce the poor outcomes of a diagnosis, such as limb amputation.
To view the Presentation of Research and learn more about Dr. Zayed’s research, click here.
From St. Louis, we traveled west to Columbia to visit the Missouri CARES Heart Squad, operated through the University of Missouri’s emergency medicine department. Dr. Julie Stilley and Ms. Kayla Riel, both emergency medicine professionals, lead the CARES Heart Squad which recruits individuals to become bystander CPR experts. These volunteers, many of whom are members of our Omicron Chapter, become certified to give bystander CPR training throughout Missouri’s communities.
Dr. Stilley’s and Ms. Riel’s goal with the Heart to Heart Grant is to increase comfortability in giving CPR to women: “In Missouri, only 13% of women who need bystander CPR actually receive it”, shared Ms. Riel. This is due to a variety of factors, but the CARES Squad commonly hears from participants that they do not know how to place their hands on a woman’s chest or feel that it is inappropriate to do so. With their grant, a fleet of anatomically proper female manikins were purchased. Members who attended the Columbia event were given the opportunity to be trained in bystander CPR on the new female manikins. Community members were also invited and encouraged to attend to learn the importance of helping sisters, mothers, and friends who may one day have a cardiac episode and need rescuing.
To learn more about the Missouri CARES Heart Squad and their efforts in increasing the percentage of women who receive bystander CPR, click here.
Alpha Phi Foundation is grateful for the hospitality of both The Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the University of Missouri, and we look forward to seeing their projects come to fruition over the next year.