Our body can be compared to a car; without the right gasoline a car will not drive well. Our heart is the tank that stores and distribute the gasoline, our blood.
When we speak about heart disease I am on the front line of fearing it.
At age ten, my father, then age 35, whom I adored and thought the world circled around him, collapsed on our home’s patio, while I was watching. He died on the way to the hospital of a massive heart attack and left me and my younger sister orphans of a dad. That crucial event impacted my life to a great extent. I certainly do not want to see others go through the same trauma I lived through.
Jonathan Schwartz, the founder of the HeartView Global Foundation has experienced the loss of his childhood friend, Lawrence Krutman, at age 42, due to a heart attack. Sharing his friend’s passing with his doctor, the Doc suggested Jonathan takes the coronary CT Angiogram, a non-invasive virtual image of the human being coronary arteries, a test not covered by health insurance. The result of that test revealed that he had a nearly 100% blockage in a large coronary artery, which could have caused his death. That surreal moment drove Jonathan to start his non-profit organization, HeartView Global Foundation, designated to help improve, and possibility save, the lives of thousands of people.
On Saturday, February 16, 2013, to a full auditorium, at the Four Seasons Hotel, Westlake Village, California, Jonathan Schwartz, by his side his dedicated to the cause wife, Meridith, have put together their foundation’s second annual gala, honoring Asher Kimchi, MD, the Founder and Chairman of the International Academy of Cardiology and World Congress on Heart Disease, who received the Foundation’s Award for Excellence in Early Detection and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, and Diane Brinson, an entrepreneur, who encourages her over 140 employees to rise to the occasion that charity is an obligation, not a choice, by matching any contribution they make, dollar for dollar.
It is appropriate to mention that Daniel Berman, MD, the director, Nuclear Cardiology and Director, Cardiac Imaging at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center is HeartView Global Foundation secretary who works diligently to expand the Foundation’s scope.
The audience’s average age was 30-to-40, the Emcee, comedian Greg Fitzsimmons and entertainment by country singer Joel Crouse and pop/rock singer-songwriter-musician Richard Marx.
Among the guest speakers was Mr. David Murdock, the chairman of Dole Food Company, Inc., an avid proponent for healthy lifestyle. Adjacent to the Dole worldwide headquarters in Westlake Village, California is the Four Seasons Hotel & Spa, where the gala took place, and the California Wellbeing Institute.
The mission of the foundation, behind which Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles firmly stands, is to identify heart disease in its latent “clinically silent” phase, thereby allowing the individual to undertake the necessary prophylactic lifestyle modifications and medications to prevent the otherwise inevitable, the development of heart attack, stroke, or premature sudden cardiac death.
Proceeds from the events will benefit the Cedar-Sinai for cardiac imaging research and to underwrite Cardiac CT Angiogram for patients needing such assistance.
A secular man once asked a rabbi, ‘where is God?’ And the rabbi replied, ‘in your heart.’
Your heart is the center of your existence. Whatever it takes, whatever you do, make the difference, help save life through HeartView Global Foundation:
http://www.heartviewglobalfoundation.org/FrontPage.aspx
