Mission trips to the Dominican Republic for heart surgery may be one man's vision that we've been covering on our special series of Health Matters this week, but in order to make that dream into a reality, a whole team of dedicated members are needed.

Clinical Supervisor Diane Clifton says that "You work as a team of 14 people from all over the United States, you haven't even met them before that mission and yet everything comes together."

They all work very long hours. Registered nurse Ashley Linere says that "Yesterday was our longest day, we did three surgeries. We were here at 6:30 in the morning, we went home around 10:30 pm."

This group of nurses work with Dr. Robert Pascotto in the open-heart intensive care unit at the Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center. But they've learned that working here in the Dominican Republic is completely different. Ashley explains, "We've had to overcome a lot of hurdles but we've done it and the patients are doing pretty well."

John says that another big difference between operating here and operating in the United States is power outages. Just in the last hour I've witnessed the power go out at least three times. That does not seem to affect the surgery team. Registered Nurse Irene Kolesa says "We have to make sure that they are manually given oxygen whenever there's a power outage, so that's our number one priority."

Ashley also says that many people on this special missions team make personal sacrifices to be here as well. "My mom had to come from Canada to watch my kids and my husband took a separate vacation."

Cardiac Surgeon Robert Pascotto says that "They pay their way down here, they take vacation time away from the hospital. But I think that every individual that's returned has said that this has been the best experience of their life."

Perhaps not only the best experience of their lives, but they're here saving lives. Join us tomorrow and we'll meet some of those very grateful patients.

For more information on the heart to heart mission and how you can help you can visit their website at www.heartmission.com.