Then a decade later, in 1989, the doctor left Europe, its comforts, the predictable arc of a surgeon's career, his specialty's lucrative rewards, tossed all of that for a giant question mark. The center's reputation, as well as his own, has reached beyond Ghana's borders, to countries like Sierra Leone, where there is not even a single heart surgeon. Every day, letters mailed from other African countries land on his desk and implore Frimpong-Boateng for help. He held the blueprint of the expansion that, among other improvements, will move patients from the current colonial-era ward, which has one toilet for 35 patients. I believe we have international standards.
Heart surgery is like an airline.
We're not a TWA or Pan Am with a large fleet, but the one or two planes we have we must maintain at the same standards. What would have happened to those not included in this group, to those unable to travel on their own means, was better left unsaid. As unseemly as it was to leave patients requiring heart surgery untreated, the hard reality is that the vast majority of people here died of everyday illnesses like malaria, respiratory infections and diarrhea. But everything else, Frimpong-Boateng has paid on his own by raising money through his Heart Foundation. For the freedom he has enjoyed, Frimpong-Boateng has also learned the diplomacy required of being the country's only heart surgeon.