- Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi Physicians Recognized Globally For Life-Saving Care for Mother and Baby Cleveland
Physicians at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, an integral part of Mubadala Health, have received three prestigious awards from the American Heart Association for abstracts detailing some of the most dramatic life-saving care they delivered over the last year.
Awarded at the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2021, caregivers and teams from the hospital’s Heart & Vascular Institute received gold, bronze and the Paul Dudley-White International Scholar awards for abstracts submitted, detailing the extraordinary measures taken to save patients’ lives. It is the first time any hospital in the Middle East has won 3 awards in a single AHA-congress.
The gold award was awarded for an abstract detailing care provided to a pregnant woman suffering from acute respiratory distress caused by a viral infection. She was transferred to Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi in a critical condition after doctors discovered that she was also suffering from heart failure due to mitral valve stenosis. After being notified of the patient’s condition, a multidisciplinary team at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi sprang into action. They began putting together a treatment plan before she had even arrived at the hospital. This fast work meant that the patient was in the operating room within just two hours of being admitted.
“The Gold award case is truly a reflection of the fantastic multidisciplinary teamwork on display across our hospital every day. Thanks to the dedication and professionalism of our team, we were able to step in and provide highly complex, life-saving care to the patient in almost record time. The level of coordination our team displayed is really unparalleled” says Dr. Yazan Aljabery, a heart surgeon at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi and the lead author of the gold winning clinical abstract.
The abstract provides a great level of detail into how a multidisciplinary team that included interventional cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, intensivists, obstetrics, neonatologists and a variety of allied health caregivers at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi approached the patient’s case. The complexity of the interaction between the cause of her heart failure and the viral infection, made accurate diagnosis more important and significantly more challenging, something that the authors said, could not have been achieved without the extensive teamwork and state-of-the-art treatment options employed. In gratitude and in recognition of the life-saving care the team provided, the patient decided to give her child the middle name ‘Cleveland’.
The bronze award winning abstract detailed the use of advanced, high quality cardiac imaging used to diagnose a blot clot in transit that travelled from the right to the left side of a patient’s heart during her time at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. The patient, who was admitted to the hospital’s ICU suffering from respiratory failure was found to have a large, mobile clot – a rare complication of her condition - and rushed to surgery to remove it, preventing, what the abstract describes, as a ‘catastrophic stroke’. Thanks to the care she received at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, the patient was able to recover and return to her life.
“Thanks to the high-quality imaging and skilled team we have assembled, our cardiology team was able to diagnose and treat the patient’s blood clot in transit quickly and efficiently. Transiting blood clots carry a very high risk of devastating complications including brain stroke. Rushing her to surgery meant we were able to prevent anything like that from happening, ensuring we achieved the best possible outcome for her,” says Dr. Yosef Manla, a cardiology research scholar at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi and the lead author of the bronze award winning abstract.
The team of caregivers from Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi was also awarded the Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award given to the authors of the highest ranked abstract from the United Arab Emirates. Named after the founding member of the American Heart Association, the award recognizes research and contributions that advance cardiovascular care internationally.
“I am proud to call myself a Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi caregiver and contribute to putting the UAE’s name on the map when it comes to world-class patient care through these awards. They are truly a testament to the hard work our entire team puts into delivering the highest quality care to some of the region’s sickest patients. I wholeheartedly believe that Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi is the best place to receive care and these awards demonstrate that when it comes to clinical excellence, we deliver for our patients and community,” concludes Dr. Aljabery.
Founded in 1924, the American Heart Association is the oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke in the USA. In addition to research, it issues clinical care guidelines and quality metrics designed to advance and improve cardiovascular care worldwide.
For more information or to request an appointment at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, call 800 8 CCAD (2223), visit www.clevelandclinicabudhabi.ae or download the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi app.