For Wayne State School of Medicine student Courtney Moore, saving her father from a near-fatal tragedy inspired her to redirect her studies and come up with a way to save the lives of thousands.

When James Moore, 63, collapsed mid-sentence in his Brighton home last year, the second-year medical student, who happened to be visiting, knew she had to react.

“I couldn’t find a pulse or a heartbeat,” Moore said. “It was sudden cardiac death.”

Moore performed chest compressions on her father while they waited for an ambulance. He regained consciousness thanks to Moore’s quick reaction and was rushed to the hospital. There, he was treated by Wayne State University Physician Group doctors.

According to Moore, saving her father’s life, along with the care that he received from the hypertension and cardiology specialists of the WSU Physician Group, stirred her to change her concentration in school from orthopedic surgery or neurosurgery to hypertension.

Then Moore took her new passion one step further.

“I realized that I didn’t want anybody to have to go through what I went through. I don’t think any child should ever have to resuscitate their parent,” Moore said. “Originally, I was told I was going to have to wait until I graduated medical school to make a difference. That made me think a little bit more outside the box about ‘What can I do now?’ and ‘What can I do even though I’m still a student and I haven’t graduated yet?’”

She founded the organization Health is Where the Heart Is in April 2011 to spread the word that maintaining good heart health is important and can be achieved easily without making dramatic lifestyle changes.

“I started talking to the patients that I saw at the hospital, and what I was hearing from them was that they kind of are getting this ‘all-or-nothing’ opinion from their doctors—either eat perfect or exercise all the time, or they’re going to have their heart give out,” Moore said. “What they weren’t aware of was that making your heart healthier isn’t something you have to do all at once, and it doesn’t mean that you have to give up everything in your life.”

Moore said the probability that people are going to give up poor eating habits altogether and all at once is slim. Therefore, her organization is pushing for achievable goals that aren’t overwhelming, such as choosing to drink juice instead of pop or to eat a piece of fruit instead of chips.

“We need to be more realistic about peoples’ habits and changing them slightly,” Moore said. “So that’s the idea: daily heart health goals in and of itself are tiny but have a large, cumulative effect on their heart health.”

Aside from informing the public of simple ways to keep their hearts healthy, Health is Where the Heart Is aids those who cannot afford to see a primary care physician, are uninsured or, in some cases, are homeless.

“We’re selling our paperback book, and we’re doing live presentations at corporations, and we’re using those funds to go out in the public and do health fairs and free hypertension screenings, give away free copies of our booklet,” Moore said.

Jennifer Mahn, a clinical research coordinator for the WSU Physician Group at the SoM, volunteers for Health is Where the Heart Is to connect the organization with fairs and to people who need health services for free.

Health is Where the Heart Is is based out of Detroit. According to Mahn, urban areas like Detroit are in much need of medical assistance.

“The problem is a lot of times in urban areas, by the time they (the patients) get to us, by the time they come to the hospital, their condition is pretty progressed,” Mahn said. “Where Courtney’s organization and organizations like hers come into play is that they’re able to go into a community, identify these people, screen them, take their blood pressure and provide them with information that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to obtain.”

The organization has events planned in the near future, including a date at the Temple of I AM Community Health and Resource fair in Detroit on Aug. 20. According to Moore, the fair is geared toward helping displaced people, homeless people and individuals who have lost their health care after losing their jobs.

According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the state of Michigan and has been for more than 100 years. One out of three deaths in Michigan is due to poor heart health. On average, a Michigan resident dies of heart disease every 20 minutes.

“People need to realize the impact that everyday choices have on their heart health,” Mahn said. “I think people think that you wake up one day and you have a heart attack. Well, it’s not that extreme. There are everyday choices that people make that impact their daily health, and I think that’s the most important thing to take with it.”