Summit 2 Video Script
UNIT 2
TV Documentary:
Dr. Torstveit’s Vacation
PART 1
Chris Bury: For the last ten years, Dr. Jeremy
Torstveit has spent his vacations in Sri Lanka,
the island nation near India once known as
Ceylon. Like many surgeons, he has a
reputation for being a cool, difficult, and
talented perfectionist. He is obsessive about his
life’s work: repairing heart defects in children.
In this country, such operations have become
almost routine. But ten years ago, on his first
vacation to Sri Lanka, Dr. Torstveit discovered
that his specialty was virtually unknown there.
Children born with heart defects simply died—
thousands of them every year. For this driven
doctor, that was just unacceptable. Since then,
he developed a new obsession: performing
heart operations on children who have no
chance to live without them.
Stephenie Hollyman: Torstveit is a cardiac
surgeon who gives children born with
severe heart defects every reason to expect
a normal life.
Jeremy Torstveit: Everything’s in place in the
United States for heart surgery. So what else
can I do, you know? I don’t build roads. I don’t
teach school. This was a natural thing for me
to do.
Stephenie Hollyman: At the National Hospital,
the waiting list for children with heart defects
numbers over 2,500. Torstveit learned about all
of this from Dr. Dudley Halpe, a colleague in
Phoenix, who is a native of Sri Lanka.
Jeremy Torstveit: He encouraged me to come and
see if . . . if it was possible to operate on the
literally thousands of children that were dying
of heart disease untreated in this country.
Stephenie Hollyman: Torstveit usually comes
twice a year at his own expense, participating in
twenty to thirty operations a week as surgeon
or instructor. Most of his time is now devoted to
training Sri Lankan doctors in the lifesaving
Summit 2, Second Edition
Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. Permission granted to reproduce for classroom use.
Page 1 of 2
procedures. Three surgeons perform 400
operations a year, free of charge.
Tuesday, 6:00 A.M. This time, one week is all Dr.
Torstveit can spare from his busy Arizona
practice. A week to travel there, work, and fly
back, halfway around the world.
The sun is rising over the Indian Ocean. Never
mind that Torstveit has been flying for twenty-
seven hours now.
Jeremy Torstveit: Time to get going. Don’t have a
lot of time to waste. And I feel fine, so I’m ready
to go.
Stephenie Hollyman: Never mind that for
Torstveit, it’s 3:00 A.M., body time. The
beleaguered staff wants a few minutes with
him, always a morale boost.
Jeremy Torstveit: Everybody you meet here is . . .
that I’ve run into, that I’ve worked with . . .
everyone is so genuine that you really miss
them when you don’t see them. And they are
your family, and you want to get back and see
them. I came from a family that believed in
giving and really giving a lot. We weren’t
people that gave on Sunday. We normally gave
until it hurt. We believed in . . . in helping
people out. And there’s always a way. There’s
always a way to find a way to help people out.
And I think I grew up with that tradition, and I
think that I felt that I should do this.
PART 2
Stephenie Hollyman: For the last three days,
Torstveit has been trying to find the best
candidate for the first surgery on Monday.
Jeremy Torstveit: Put her name down there and
what you’re going to do next to that.
Stephenie Hollyman: Heart defects often pass
detection in Sri Lanka until too late. He looks
for a child whose correction won’t be
complicated, a case that, after surgery, will enjoy
a quick transition through intensive care.
Torstveit finally finds his candidate, the one
child he can help the most. He selects a farmer’s
daughter who has a hole in her heart. She’s
called Nadisha.
Summit 2 Video Script
Chandama Aramasena: She’s a straightforward
case. That’s why we selected that girl. And she
has waited . . . waited on the waiting list for two
years.
Stephenie Hollyman: Monday, 8:00 A.M. Dr.
Aramasena will perform the operation with Dr.
Torstveit assisting. This senior surgeon for the
National Hospital trained three years at Oxford
University. Nadisha’s father carries his precious
cargo to the operating theater from ward
twenty-five.
Dr. Perrera: . . . now we have the intravenous line
in . . .
Jeremy Torstveit: This very simple operation will
allow this child to have children, grow up, have
a normal life, statistically. And without that, this
child would be having significant problems
fairly soon. This is a very large defect. This is
why heart surgery is so economical in the long
run. This little girl spends three or four days
recovering, and that’s . . . and she’s fixed
forever.
Chandama Aramasena: If it is all right, go on one.
Go to thirty-two, please. Drop the off-flow,
please. Clamp it off.
Summit 2, Second Edition
Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. Permission granted to reproduce for classroom use.
Page 2 of 2
Jeremy Torstveit: We’re just making sure there’s
no air inside the heart. OK, we’re going to come
off the heart-lung machine now. OK,
go ahead.
Stephenie Hollyman: The hole in Nadisha’s heart
is fixed. It’s almost time to head home.
Jeremy Torstveit: Everything went fine.
Everything went fine. I truly believe that you
can get a ripple effect in reality, a really, truly,
tangible ripple effect. And I think you can show
other people that this can be done. You know,
what I’ve found here is that this has been
rewarding to me beyond measure. This . . . the
rewards have been far greater than the
sacrifices. Rabbit. Can . . . can she smile? The
attitude of “Well, you know, it’s too much.
There’s too much to do” never will work. You
have to just dig in and go.
Chris Bury: Since those vacations to Sri Lanka
began ten years ago, his priority has changed
from performing surgery himself to training the
doctors and nurses there in his specialty. In so
doing, the ripple effect of his gift, his obsession,
is that much greater.