WebMD Health Heroes

Dr. Craig Lambrecht

A North Dakota National Guardsman for 24 years, Dr. Craig Lambrecht is no stranger to answering the call of duty. But on his most recent deployment to Iraq last year, the father of five found himself battling a new health crisis.

The U.S. Army-operated Smith Gate Clinic -- the only pediatric burn unit for Iraq -- was treating up to 700 children per month, and the waves of patients were taking their toll. Supplies were low and couldn't be restocked fast enough.

That's when Lambrecht, 46, placed a call to his home hospital, MedCenter One in Bismarck. "I told them we need help, we need supplies, we need money," he says. Within weeks, support poured in from across the country.

To date, Lambrecht and his team have raised about $100,000 in cash and more than $500,000 in supplies. Lambrecht's work didn't stop there, though. Now back in the United States, the pediatric ER surgeon has made it his new mission to aid Iraqi children who need care beyond the scope of Iraqi hospitals.

So far, he has helped two children come to America for surgery, paid for by donations, with four more on the way. "Treating these kids doesn't have any political barriers," Lambrecht says. "There's a universal understanding that, as a parent, you'll do whatever it takes." -- Meredith Stanton

Heidi Adams

Cancer's no picnic at any age, but it can inflict a fresh hell of hardships on the young. Heidi Adams had to wait eight excruciating months to learn she had Ewing's sarcoma because doctors misdiagnosed her symptoms.

"The information I was giving was being filtered through the fact that I was 26 years old -- and was discounted," says Adams, now 40. "That's one of my big beefs." Another is that physicians at first refused to prescribe painkillers for the piercing pain that woke her up night after night. "They probably thought I just wanted the drugs to party," she half-jokes.

At the end of her isolating 14-month treatment, one thought kept running through her mind: Surely, she wasn't the only young person who knew what platelet counts were. Her response? Founding www.PlanetCancer.org, an online oasis for survivors ages 15 to 40. "Although we're about 6% of all cancer patients, we just get lost," she says.

At Planet Cancer, young adults connect, make chemo jokes, and pull for each other. Since launching in 2000, the site has grown to more than 5,000 members and has expanded offline to host weekend retreats.

What's next? Adams' dream is for every young adult 15 to 40 who is diagnosed with cancer -- 70,000 each year in the United States -- to be able to find the information, resources, and services they need. "It makes such a difference when you have support," says the Austin, Texas, mom of 4-year-old twins. "Somebody's got your back." -- Kim Caviness

Carol Levine

Carol Levine's life changed forever one frigid January day in 1990 when her husband, Howard, lost control of their car on an icy road. Miraculously, she was unhurt, but he suffered a severe brain injury that left him disabled and requiring 24-hour care -- care that suddenly, inexplicably, and bewilderingly became Levine's sole responsibility.

"Of course I was grateful he lived," she says, "but I was basically told, ‘He's yours now.' And I felt that was wrong. I wondered, Why did that feel wrong, and what could be done about it?"

She set out to find the answers on behalf of the millions of American family caregivers who provide unpaid and unaided care. Levine, 73, a New Yorker with a background in medical ethics (she won a 1993 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for her work on AIDS policy and ethics), joined the United Hospital Fund in 1996 to direct the Families and Health Care Project.

Last fall, she introduced an ethics framework and policy agenda for New York state, and she is now developing the Campaign for Family Caregivers for New York City's hospitals, nursing homes, and home-care agencies. Her work has attracted national attention and is inspiring similar efforts in other states.

Levine's years of personal caregiving are now over (her husband died earlier this year), but her mission is unchanged: "This is an enormous health issue, and the family caregiver must be part of the solution." -- Colleen Paretty

Kyle and Pattie Petty

Adam Petty had two dreams: to be a NASCAR champion like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him, and to build a camp for children with serious illnesses near his North Carolina home. The 19-year-old Busch Series driver was poised to fulfill both when he crashed into a wall during practice on May 20, 2000. He died instantly.

Devastated, his parents, Kyle and Pattie Petty, decided to move forward with the camp in their son's memory. With the overwhelming support of the NASCAR community, the Pettys raised about $30 million and in 2004 opened Victory Junction Gang Camp, modeled after Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. It hosts week-long disease-specific sessions for kids ages 7 to 15 during the summer and family weekends year-round.

Kyle says just being with the kids has helped him deal with Adam's death. "All of a sudden you're around these kids 40 weekends a year and they become a part of your life. We lost one child, but, to date, we've gained over 6,000."

Pattie is at the camp every day, and says she'd like to open another in the Midwest. "The doctors and medical specialists say the kids' treatments work better after they leave camp," she says. "And the kids say ‘this disease does not rule me. I rule the disease, and I can be a productive individual in my community.' ... To me, that's a medical breakthrough." -- Elisabeth Bergman