Kate O'Boyle

Waiting Kate O'Boyle

Christiaan Neethling Barnard (8 November 1922 - 2 September 2001) was a South A ican cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant on December 3, 1967.

Never the same againIn 1967, at the age of 12, I read in the newspaper that Dr. Christian Barnard had performed the first human-to-human heart transplant. I remember seeing the photograph of Luis Washkansky in his hospital bed. I was amazed. I wondered what Louis was feeling. I wondered what it was like having someone else's heart? I wondered how all of that was possible? Although he would die 18 days later, the story of that heart transplant remained with me. Little did I know that not only would I be related to someone with a heart transplant but, that I would undergo this same life-saving procedure.