Christiaan Barnard

Christiaan Neethling Barnard (born in Beaufort, Western Cape, South Africa, 8 November 1922 - died in Paphos, Paphos District, Cyprus, 2 September 2001 at age 78 years) is a cardiac surgeon from South Africa. He became known around the world since successfully performed the first heart transplant surgery successful in the world from human to human.


Early life

Barnard was born and raised in Beaufort West, South Africa. He is the son of a deacon. One of her brothers died of heart problems when she was a toddler. This is affecting families Christiaan Barnard and career ambitions.


Barnard studied medicine at the University of Cape Town, and carry out the secretariat and resident at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. He became a general practitioner in Ceres, a town in the province of Western Cape.


In 1951, he returned to Cape Town and worked in two hospitals. While working, he took a master degree program and graduated in 1953 from the University of Cape Town. He then received his medical doctorate at the same university with a dissertation "The treatment of tuberculosis meningitis".
As a resident surgeon at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1953 until 1956, Barnard was first demonstrated abnormalities of intestinal atresia is a birth defect due to insufficient blood to the fetus while in the womb.
Since 1956, he studied surgery at the University of Minnesota. As in Minneapolis, he then studied further in kardiothorax surgery (cardiac surgery and chest). Here he met Norman Shumway, who helped research for the first human heart transplant.


In 1958, he was appointed surgeon kardiothorax Groote Schuur Hospital.


He conducted experiments in recent years using animal heart transplant after he was performing the first successful kidney transplant in 1953. He did the first kidney transplant in South Africa in 1959.

In addition to his research, he also taught at the University of Cape Town.

Heart transplant

Operation of the first human heart transplant performed on December 3, 1967. He was assisted by his brother, Marius Barnard. The operation lasted nine hours and involved a team of thirty people. Transplant patient, Louis Washkansky, 55, suffered from diabetes and heart disease. Donor heart came from a young woman, Denise Darvall, who died from traffic accidents. Washkansky survived since the operation, and lived for eighteen days. The situation is getting worse due to pneumonia caused by immuno-suppressive drugs are used.


Barnard went on a heart transplant. An operation performed on January 2, 1968 in Philip Blaiberg and patient survived for 19 months. In 1969 performed a heart transplant on Mrs Dorothy Fisher and survived for 24 months.


Personal life

The first marriage Barnald with Aletta Louw, a nurse, whom he married in 1948 when the practice in Ceres. In 1969, they divorced, and in 1970 he married Barabara Zoellner.
Zoellner Barnard divorced in 1982, and married for the third time in 1988 by Karin Setzkorn. Setzkorn divorced in 2000.
Christiaan Barnard wrote two autobiographies, titled One Life, published in 1969, and Second Life in 1993.


Book

In addition to writing an autobiography, Barnard also wrote several books including:


The Donor
Your Healthy Heart
The Second Life
Night Season
The Best Medicine
Arthritis Handbook: How to Live With Arthritis
Good Life Good Death: A Doctor's Case for Euthanasia and Suicide
South Africa: Sharp Dissection
50 Ways to a Healthy Heart
Body Machine