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28 T M C N E W S . O R G Explaining Heart Defects and Repairs with Animation A pediatric heart surgeon educates patients and families with videos T oy cars zipping around a race- track, along with tiny buzzing robots and a few furry friends, tell a story about the heart that pamphlets and diagrams can't. These are the characters brought to life in animated videos co-created by Daniel J. Penny, M.D., Ph.D., chief of cardiology at Texas Children's Hospital. As a care provider, Penny longed to have a better way to com- municate medical information to his young patients and their families. "When we see a parent and a patient in clinic, we usually draw a diagram of the heart and then we are proud of ourselves that we feel we've informed that family," Penny said. "It's much, much more difficult to find out ways of helping you to deal with the emotions you feel when you hand your child with tetralogy of Fallot—a rare combination of four congenital heart abnormalities— over to an anesthetist worrying that you're never going to see them again." Not only can the information patients and parents need to know about a heart condition be hard to understand, it also can be hard to take in, given the heightened emo- tional stress of the situation. Years after the scars of congeni- tal heart surgery have healed, Penny said, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), divorces and other negative outcomes can impact families. "When you speak to children with congenital heart disease and you ask them what would help them to deal with their condition, they will usually say they want more information," Penny said, "They want information for them and also for the people around them—their friends at school, their relatives, et cetera, et cetera." To achieve this, Penny sought the help of Michael Liddy, an old friend who works as an architect in Australia, to create videos to share critical information with his patients. For 10 years, the pair has been creating the videos together from opposite sides of the globe, exchanging text messages and Skyping when their schedules allow. "We had discussed an idea that, wouldn't it be great to explain to children not only the processes they're going through, but help them understand what's wrong in the first place?" Liddy said. "If we can demystify that, help them to understand, then perhaps they start to feel that it isn't their whole body that's broken." Using a racetrack to represent circulation in the body, the vid- eos show children how clogs and blockages can impact the function of the heart and how the heart can be repaired. Ruby, a Texas armadillo, and Beau, a bison, teach viewers about heart problems, while "blings"—little buzzing robots— perform the operations. For Matt Timmons, assistant vice president at Texas Children's Hospital West Campus, the videos continue to help educate his own family about the heart condition of his son, Luke. "We have a family history of congenital heart disease and Luke was diagnosed with coarctation of the aorta," said Timmons, who has worked with Penny in the past. "The animated spin on the informa- tion brought it to a level we could understand. … You can see the blood flow and, in Luke's case, you can see where the racetrack narrows. We understood that is where the aorta is narrowing. … It was just easier for B y B r i t n i R . M c A s h a n Credit: Texas Children's Hospital /Ochrelight Beau, a bison, and Ruby, a Texas armadillo, top, teach viewers about heart defects, while tiny buzzing robots, middle, perform the operations in Texas Children's Hospital videos. Daniel J. Penny, M.D., Ph.D., is chief of cardiology at Texas Children's Hospital.