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Chattahoochee High student undergoing heart test
In his eighteen years producing Georgia Public Broadcasting’s “Prep Sports Plus,” Tom Vardase has seen his share of athletic triumphs…and tragedies. After the heart-related deaths of several Georgia teen athletes in 2002 and 2003, Vardase felt compelled to act.
“You hear more and more [about teen deaths]…then I found out it’s preventable,” Vardase said. A conversation with Tom’s own cardiologist confirmed that a simple 8-minute echocardiogram can detect many of the heart defects that are responsible for these deaths.
The main obstacle was the fee for the test, around $1000 and generally not covered by health insurance for asymptomatic teens.
Vardase had established the non-profit organization ‘BESTT for US, Inc.’ in 1997 to help athletes with scholarships so it was a short journey to formulate a plan for a heart-screening program under that umbrella. Vardase named his new venture Smart Heart Scans.
Coordinating the services of certified sonographers and cardiologists, he formed a team that would travel to high schools by appointment, with the necessary equipment, to perform echocardiograms on student athletes. By scheduling groups of athletes on a single day and testing only for defects inherent in younger people, the fee dropped to $65.
In May 2003, Chattahoochee High became the first school to sign up. Vardase didn’t expect problems in that first group of 150 students because, at that time, the American Heart Association was on record stating that approximately one in every 10,000 children had some type of heart defect. Nevertheless, one student tested positive that day and another tested positive one week later at Northview High. The following week, a third tested positive at Blessed Trinity High School.
In fact, after 6 ½ years, Vardase’s program is averaging 3-4 positive tests in every 100 students. The findings are privately shared by the cardiologist only with the student’s parents, and most defects don’t force the athlete to stop playing sports but do require medical attention. Vardase reports that there are some students whose lives were saved by the test.
Chattahoochee High schedules an annual Smart Heart Scans visit. Athletic Director Milo Mathis said, “The heart scans have been a wonderful program for our community. The prospect of [a heart defect] in a young athlete can be devastating. To have a tool to combat it has been a blessing.”
Parkview High’s football coach Cecil Flowe has a personal take on the program. When asked if Smart Heart Scans was helpful, he commented, “Helpful would be an understatement. I found my own son's heart condition due to this scan. Otherwise I would not have known about it and he could have died.”
Working fulltime as a television producer, Vardase volunteers his spare time to Smart Heart Scans. “The gratification when you find something [wrong with a teen’s heart] is knowing that you helped ‘mom and dad’ have peace of mind. It’s a great thing and I’m so glad I did it,” said Vardase.
For more info:
http://smartheartscans.com/aboutus.asp
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1200000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echocardiography
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