Connie Nixon remembers when Mateo Hernandez came to UF, fighting for his life before he was born.
The now 18-month-old boy’s mother came to the UF Health Congenital Heart Center from Puerto Rico after discovering her son would be born with a heart defect.
Hernandez is one of thousands who have come to the center, which opened at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital in 2006. In the past 10 years, the center added an intensive care unit and started performing heart transplants, said Nixon, a registered nurse and clinical coordinator at the center.
Nixon has worked at the center for three years and said she has seen it grow. They have been able to save more lives in the time she’s been there.
“It used to be that people didn’t live, and now they live, and they live good lives,” Nixon said.
The center is working on advancing technology in the cardiology department, she said.
It was the first in Florida to put a SynCardia Total Artificial Heart in a 16-year-old patient.
Jennifer Co-Vu, a pediatric cardiologist and director of the fetal cardiac program, has been working there for five years. She said the center hopes to be No. 1 in the state for congenital heart health.
“We’re anticipating hopefully to be able to produce more advanced technology that can help patients with congenital heart disease,” she said.
But for Nixon, she said she goes to work every day to help save lives.
“I see these kids with heart disease and they have so much potential,” she said. “I love working with the parents and giving them hope and that their kids are going to grow up and go to college and do whatever it is they want to do.”
Nixon said she loves her job and no amount of money could make her do anything else.
“I don’t have two children, I have thousands,” she said. “They become a part of your family.”
