Christiaan Barnard
| Christiaan Barnard | |
|---|---|
Christiaan Barnard in 1969
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| Born |
Christiaan Neethling Barnard 8 November 1922 Beaufort West, Cape Province, Union of South Africa |
| Died | 2 September 2001 (aged 78) Paphos, Cyprus |
| Education |
University of Cape Town University of Minnesota |
| Years active | 1950–2001 |
| Known for | first successful human-to-human heart transplant. |
| Relatives | Marius Barnard |
| Medical career | |
| Profession | Surgeon |
| Institutions |
Groote Schuur Hospital University of Minnesota |
| Specialism |
Cardiothoracic surgery Heart transplantation |
Christiaan Neethling Barnard (8 November 1922 – 2 September 2001) was a South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant on December 3, 1967, and the second overall heart transplant (James Hardy did a xenotransplant in 1964). Growing up in Beaufort West, Cape Province, he studied medicine and worked in that field for several years in his native country. In 1955, he travelled to the United States for postgraduate training under open heart surgery pioneer Walt Lillehei, where he first became acquainted with the future heart transplantation surgeon Norman Shumway. Upon returning to South Africa in 1958, Barnard was appointed head of the Department of Experiment Surgery at the Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town.
On 3 December 1967, Barnard transplanted a heart from a person who had just died from a head injury, with full permission of the donor's family, into the chest of a 54-year-old Louis Washkansky. Washkansky regained full consciousness and lived for eighteen days, even spending time with his wife, before he died of pneumonia, with the reduction of his immune system by the anti-rejection drugs being a major contributing factor. However, Barnard's second transplant patient Philip Blaiberg at the beginning of 1968 lived for nineteen months and was able to go home from the hospital.
He retired as Head of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery in Cape Town in 1983 after developing rheumatoid arthritis in his hands which ended his surgical career. He became interested in anti-aging research, and in 1986 his reputation suffered when he promoted Glycel, an expensive "anti-aging" skin cream, whose approval was withdrawn by the United States Food and Drug Administration soon thereafter. During his remaining years, he established the Christiaan Barnard Foundation, dedicated to helping underprivileged children throughout the world. He died in 2001 at the age of 78 after an asthma attack.
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