BHF science helped keep me alive: Robin’s story

Dr Robin Chung, 49, from London, was born with a congenital heart condition, but didn’t find out until he was a teenager.

“I was just about to go to university for the first time. I had gone for a routine check-up with my GP. He listened to my heart and said: ‘Has anybody ever told you you’ve got a murmur?’ I didn’t really know what that was.” After more tests, Robin discovered he had a leaking aortic valve. The doctors said they would need to operate on it one day, but it would be fine for the time being.

Lifesaving surgery: the Ross procedure

Later Robin was told he would need the Ross procedure, pioneered by Professor Donald Ross, whose research was funded by the BHF. The patient’s own pulmonary valve is used to replace their faulty aortic valve, and the pulmonary valve (which doesn’t have to withstand as much pressure as the aortic valve) is replaced with a donated human valve.

Robin explains: “The benefit is, having replaced your own valve with another one from a different part of your heart, it lasts longer, and you don’t need to take blood-thinning medication, as you would with a mechanical valve.” Robin eventually had the operation in 2000.

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A career-changing moment

During the week that he spent recovering on the ward, he made a life-changing decision. “I spoke to someone who was doing his junior doctor training. I was an engineer at the time, but it set me wondering. After a lot of thought, I decided to move into graduate medicine. I felt like I’d been given a second chance to do something meaningful.”

“If Donald Ross was here today I’d like to say ‘thank you’, because the procedure really did change everything for me: it saved my life, it gave me a new lease of life, and eventually it led to the decision to change career into medicine. And here I am, having nearly finished my training as a consultant cardiologist – and I’m able to reassure people about to have heart operations by telling them I’ve been through the same thing myself.”

It’s now been more than 20 years since Robin’s operation and he knows at some point he will need another procedure: “We may do things by keyhole surgery for the next stage – who knows. With future research, I may be indebted to the BHF one more time.”