ASTANA — When former patients line up for the Jüregımnıñ Jeñımpazy (a champion of my heart) charity run in Astana on Aug. 9, some of the doctors who treated them will be at the starting line too. For five surgeons working across cardiac, transplant, neonatal and pediatric care, the race offers a rare chance to see what happens after some of medicine’s most complex operations – when patients return to everyday life.
Astana to host Jüregımnıñ Jeñımpazy charity run on Aug. 9. Photo credit: Heart Center Foundation Organized by the Heart Center Foundation (HCF), the annual event marks Kazakhstan’s first heart transplant, performed in August 2012, and raises awareness about organ donation and transplantation.
This year, organizers expect more than 7,000 participants and visitors, with one, three, and 10-kilometer races. The event comes as demand for transplantation remains high. According to HCF, 4,604 people, including 120 children, were on Kazakhstan’s transplant waiting list as of March 19.
Transplants involving organs donated after death nearly tripled, from 23 in 2024 to 68 in 2025, yet 342 patients were unable to receive a transplant in time last year. Behind the event are doctors whose work begins long before anyone reaches a starting line. They operate on premature newborns weighing only a few kilograms, perform and support complex transplant procedures, guide families through difficult decisions and, in some cases, know the experience of being a patient themselves.
Ahead of the race, five Astana surgeons spoke to The Astana Times about the experiences that have shaped them as doctors, and what it means to meet patients again when they are no longer in a hospital bed. Cardiac surgeon Zhanna Rakish knows the doctor-patient relationship from both sides.
Cardiac surgeon Zhanna Rakish. Photo credit: personal archives Having undergone kidney transplantation herself, she said becoming a patient changed the way she understood fear, uncertainty, and the trust people place in a medical team. Before her illness, she primarily saw disease as a problem that needed to be treated.
Her own experience showed her what it means when life becomes organized around hospital visits, procedures and the hope of receiving a donor organ. “For the team, an operation is a complex, well-practiced protocol; for me, it is always a kind of sacred act. I myself clearly remember that cold in the operating room, that feeling of fear of the unknown, and the boundless trust that you place in your colleagues.
Therefore, every movement that I make here, everything I say to patients, comes with a clear understanding that in front of you is a person with hope that requires careful treatment. And something that was once given to me, I try to pass on to those people who come to me for help,” she told The Astana Times.
That memory, she said, now influences both her work in the operating room and the way she speaks to patients. Last year, after Rakish completed the charity race, a parent approached her and said she had once treated their child. Following surgery, the family had been afraid to allow the child much physical activity and had treated the child, in Rakish’s words, “like a fragile vase.”