A SURGICAL LEAP FOR MANKIND



DR. C. N. BARNARD
(8 Nov 1922 - 2 Sep 2001)

Miracles and controversies abound in almost every system of medicine, and arguably heart transplant could easily find it's pride of place amongst the top in any such fabulous list...

It was South Africa's Dr. Christiaan Neethling Barnard, a graduate from the University of Minnesota, who performed the first human heart transplant, on the night of 2/3 December 1967, at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town...

While heart surgery has become almost commonplace these days, no praise would be too high for Dr. Barnard's immense courage, with hardly any technology in those days, to perform the procedure on a high-risk 53-year-old male recipient with a failing heart, associated with diabetes and arterial disease, the donor being a young lady who tragically passed away in a vehicular accident the same day...

It should be stated here that neither were there any strict laws relating to brain death and organ transplantation in those days anywhere in the world, including South Africa, nor are there any photographs or visual records of this historic procedure for documentation...

Notwithstanding the fact that the patient survived for just under 3 weeks, and Dr. Barnard's second patient for about 20 months - which raised some legal questions - medical fraternity owes him a lot for all the risks he undertook. Dr. Barnard was also a pioneer in the correction of congenital heart defects and designing of artificial heart valves...

Dr. Barnard passed away this day, 2001, in Cyprus, reportedly after an asthmatic attack. He was 79...

Had it not been for physicians, surgeons and other luminaries like Dr. Barnard, allopathic medicine and surgery wouldn't have scaled the heights they have as things stand currently...

🙏🙏

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