So you want to be … a cardiac surgeon

Abstract

Cardiac surgery emerged as a specialty in the 1950s following the development of diagnostic angiography, the heart–lung machine and cardioplegic solutions to provide reversible cardiac standstill. Bioengineering laboratories contributed prosthetic heart valves, vascular grafts, pacemakers and artificial hearts. Many of the great pioneers had the courage to fail: deaths were frequent and regarded as inevitable. This gradually changed throughout the 1980s with improved cardiopulmonary bypass technology, blood conservation techniques and critical care (Westaby, 1997). Publication of cardiac surgical outcomes in the USA (Burack et al, 1999) and the Bristol Inquiry in 2001 then changed the landscape irreversibly.