I’m Aware That I’m Rare: Juan Alejos, MD

The phaware® interview

Dr. Juan Alejos currently serves as the Medical Director of the Pediatric Heart Transplant/Cardiomyopathy Program at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA. He is also the founder of Hearts With Hope, a non-profit, whose mission is to provide medical, dental and humanitarian assistance to children with congenital heart disease in the underserved global community. Dr. Alejos discusses the work of Hearts with Hope.

I’m Dr. Juan Alejos, I’m a pediatric cardiologist working at Mattel Children’s Hospital in UCLA, Director of the pediatric pulmonary hypertension program there.

Hearts with Hope is a non-profit organization we started about 11 years ago, actually initially the first steps were taken over 20 years ago after my father passed away. My father was a pediatrician who trained in Peru. After he passed away in the early 90’s, I went back to visit where he had trained, kind of a connection with him. As I was leaving, I offered to come back and give lectures. The medical director of the only children’s hospital in Peru told me, “instead of…