Mayo cardiac sonographer Rosanne White Kubee has a lot of heart. Because she's dedicating time each year to take care of young hearts before they fail.
Kubee will be traveling from the US to Samoa on April 26th to bring medical care to children.
It's all in an effort to reduce the burden of childhood Rheumatic Heart Disease, otherwise known RHD.
RHD is the condition of strep throat that if left untreated, may damage the heart and lead to potential fatal outcomes.
Working with the Rheumatic Relief program, Kubee is now on a mission to find out why Samoans have the highest rates of RHD in the world.
"So we go to all the different schools, we are scanning kids and we are looking for sign of rheumatic heart disease in their valves, or in the pump and if we see anything, we then send them on to a full echo so we have different stations these kids go to, from there they get referred either to surgery, or they are treated with penicillin," she said.
She also helps train Samoan health professionals, principals and teachers to recognize what a sore throat is, what to do and how treat it.
"If we leave these kids untreated, they will not survive their life."
Last year Kubee, along with students from Brigham Young University in Utah, saw more than 3,000 Samoan children. She says about 200 of them had RHD or other critical heart conditions.
Her goal this year is to help as many children as possible, and hopefully prevent more children from getting the disease.
"It's just very rewarding, I'm really appreciative of the fact and I can't do it without the support of others."