Heart-warming Heart & Stroke ad surprises clinician-scientists with grateful patients

Two new ads from the Heart and Stroke foundation surprised researchers with a room full of people who benefitted from their research. The first includes Dr. Lori West sitting down in a Calgary café for an interview. During the course of the ad, other customers, staff and the interviewer herself reveal to Dr. West that her research on pediatric heart transplants saved them or their child’s life. A lot of healthy children come and hug her, and a delighted Dr. West can be heard asking, “Is this a set-up?” The ad ends with everyone in the café giving Dr. West a standing ovation.Dr. West introduced the concept that recipients of pediatric heart transplants did not need to to have the same blood type as the donor, increasing the pool of transplant recipients. Her cardiac transplant research continues at the University of Alberta.The second has Dr. Michael Hill, professor of neurology at the University of Calgary, about to give a presentation to a room full of people. He starts, but then is interrupted by people standing up to thank him, giving details of what they’ve been able to do in their recovery from stroke. Soon the viewer sees the audience standing up applauding. Dr. Hill’s research help usher in the use of thrombolytics in acute ischemic stroke, and he recently led the ESCAPE trial showing endovascular treatment can improve outocmes following acute ischemic stroke.The final text is the same in both ads, reading “Research is hard to see. Its impact is impossible to ignore. Fund more breakthroughs.”The reactions shown in the ads are genuine. Dr. Hill confirmed that he didn't know ahead of time that the audience was full of people who had recovered from strokes.“I began with teaching and explanation but rapidly realized what was going on and so I needed to just listen,” he wrote to the Medical Post. “It is always wonderful to hear recovery stories.” He was able to spend some one-on-one time with each patient afterwards. “I felt I was representing a team of people across the country who treated these patients. In this sense, I am acutely aware that I am a figurehead representing the work of so many of my colleagues.”"It was tremendously moving," Dr. West told CBC News after the ad was released. "Everyone was either in tears or close to tears.""As physicians we see our patients at various times over the years but there's almost no other occasion where they're there collectively, which is quite astonishing to be part of," she said.Dr. Hill said that he received comments from colleagues about the ad. Much of the feedback from colleagues was that while they also enjoy the stories of favourable outcomes, they always remember the patients whose outcomes were not as good. “Advertising like this (true as it is), is still advertising and only the positive stories are told; dead patients are not on this video,” he wrote. “For many of us, it is the ones who don’t do so well that stick with us and motivate us to work on stroke and work on research and work on improving outcomes.”Heart and Stroke partnered with Sid Lee creative agency to make the ads. They were filmed in August 2025, with patients who had come across Canada. The aim was to capture the impact that researchers and their discoveries have on people’s lives, said Stephanie Cox, vice president, marketing strategy and creative services at Heart and Stroke, in a press release. They were directed by Sam Cadman and produced by Sequoia Content. The feedback about the ads has so far been positive, Cox told the Medical Post. The ad featuring Dr. Lori West and Dr. Michael Hill can be found on Heart & Stroke website and Youtube Channel.

Heart-warming Heart & Stroke ad surprises clinician-scientists with grateful patients

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