Christiaan Neethling Barnard

Abstract

With the sudden death of Christiaan Barnard⇓ in Cyprus on September 2, 2001, the world lost not only a pioneering cardiac surgeon but also a charismatic, if controversial, figure. On December 3, 1967, Chris Barnard led the surgical team that performed the first human-to-human heart transplant. The operation captured the public’s imagination as no procedure had before or since, and the personable Barnard rapidly became an international celebrity. Monarchs and heads of state honored him. According to French President Jacques Chirac, “Dr Barnard will remain the symbol of audacious modern medicine, able to surpass accepted ideas to bring solutions to victims of suffering and illness.” Born on November 8, 1922, in the small country town of Beaufort West in South Africa, Christiaan Neethling Barnard was one of 4 sons of a church pastor who ministered to the poor. After graduating from the local high school, Barnard entered the University of Cape Town Medical School. By his own admission, he was not an outstanding student academically, but he worked hard and graduated as a doctor in 1946. After spending a short period as a primary care physician and a resident in medicine, during which time he completed a dissertation on the treatment of tuberculous meningitis, Barnard began a busy surgical residency at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. In 1956, he received a scholarship to the University of Minnesota Medical School, where he soon was drawn to the emerging field of open heart surgery. During 2 highly productive and exciting years in the Department of Surgery under the direction of Richard Varco and C. Walton Lillehei, Barnard worked hard in both the clinic and the research laboratory. Some years later, Lillehei expressed his high regard for Barnard, particularly for his innovation, courage, “prodigious” memory, and “intensity and seriousness.” Lillehei noted …