The Amazing Christiaan Barnard

This is the story of Christiaan Barnard an excellent African cardiac surgeon who performed the first human-to human heart transplant. He was born in Beaufort west, Cape Province, Union of South Africa on November eight, 1922. He grew up in Beaufort West and his family wasn’t rich. Adam Barnard, his father, was a church pastor and his mother, Maria, played church organ. Christiaan Barnard lost one of his four brothers, Adam, because he had a heart problem disease. Adam died at the age of five. In 1940, he matriculated from the Beufort West High School. Five years later, he obtained his Bachelor of Medicine of Surgery at the University of Cape Town.

At the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, he did his internship and residency. In 1948, he married Aletta Louvw and he had two children Andre and Deidre with her. After his marriage, he worked at Ceres in the Western Cape as general practionner until 1951. He returned in Cape Town where he worked in as a Senior Resident Medical officer. At the same time, he was the register of Department of Medicine at the Groote Schuur Hospital. He continued to study and two years later he obtained his Master of medicine from the University of Cape Town. He was a brilliant student and he was able to have in the same year a doctorate in medicine from the same university for a dissertation. He had a promotion and he became a Register in the Department of Surgery at the Groote Schuur Hospital.

Christiaan Barnard received Charles Adams Memorial Scholar shop and a Dazian Foundation Bursary for a two-year study in the United States of America in 1956. He studied for a postgraduate training in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. After these two years, he obtained a Master of Science in Surgery for a thesis and he was promoted Doctor of Philosophy degree for another dissertation.

After his travel in United States, in 1958, he decided to return to South Africa. He created himself the first heart unit at the Groote Schuur Hospital and he worked as a cardiothoracic surgeon. At the same time, he was a full-time lecturer and Director of Surgical Research at he the University of Cape Town. In 1961, he was nominated Head of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the teaching hospital of the University of Cape Town.