ISUOG President, Prof. Reem Abu Rustum, shares an important message on Every Little Heart Matters during Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Month 2026.
Dear friends and colleagues,
February is Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Month and we are most excited to share with you our plans aligning with our Every Little Heart Matters (ELHM) initiative for ISUOG IMPACT.
Inclusion: This initiative has truly united all of us and brought us together with heart. All over our social media, we have our ambassadors and various members pledging their commitments and planning educational activities.
Modernisation: Our committees and sub-committees have been most innovative in creating new educational content for ELHM that will be available free for all. NGen is putting out weekly “heart bites” and our VISUOG team is putting out weekly case challenges. This will continue with less frequency in the coming months. We are working on an ELHM app in the hope that we can increase the ease of access to educational content. In addition to the virtual issue of the UOG journal that was released in September 2025, our UOG team is putting together a special print edition which includes new research and many “how to” articles.
People: We have always been propelled by the collective passion and expertise we have. The spark starts in our office with our staff, and spreads across the world with each and every one of you. It has truly been remarkable to see how everyone is taking on extra tasks relating to ELHM with such dedication and commitment to our global cause.
Advocacy: With ELHM, one of our priorities is to amplify our patients’ voices. We have interviews and a podcast that resonate deeply with all of us and we welcome it if you connect us with patients who are willing to share their stories.
Certificate: Our education team is working towards having an ELHM certificate of completion of various educational content that is being complied.
Teaching: This remains at the crux of ELHM. New educational content is being put together in addition to what is already available on our ELHM webpage. Coming this May, we have an outstanding hybrid course planned in Seville and we hope you can join us.
My heartfelt gratitude to each and everyone of our staff and volunteers.
We are hoping that together, we may have maximum IMPACT in our fight to improve the prenatal detection of congenital heart defects and the outcome for our littlest patients…
Sincerely yours,
Reem S. Abu-Rustum