Christiaan Barnard, born in South Africa in 1922, was a pioneering cardiac surgeon who gained worldwide fame for performing the first successful human heart transplant in 1967. Trained in Cape Town and the United States, Barnard was already an accomplished surgeon before his historic achievement. On December 3, 1967, he led a team of surgeons at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town in transplanting the heart of a deceased donor into the chest of Louis Washkansky, a patient suffering from heart failure. Although Washkansky survived for only 18 days post-transplant, the procedure marked a monumental breakthrough in medical science and paved the way for further advancements in organ transplantation. Barnard’s groundbreaking work propelled him to international acclaim and cemented his legacy as a pioneer in the field of cardiac surgery, forever changing the landscape of modern medicine. He continued to contribute to medical research and practice until his death in 2001.

Christiaan Barnard Quotes

1. “The individual is the brain, not the heart.”
— Christiaan Barnard

2. “I don’t believe medical discoveries are doing much to advance human life. As fast as we create ways to extend it we are inventing ways to shorten it.”
— Christiaan Barnard

3. “I believe often that death is good medical treatment because it can achieve what all the medical advances and technology cannot achieve today, and that is stop the suffering of the patient.”
— Christiaan Barnard

4. “It is infinitely better to transplant a heart than to bury it to be devoured by worms.”
— Christiaan Barnard

5. “Suffering isn’t ennobling, recovery is.”
— Christiaan Barnard

6. “I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures.”
— Christiaan Barnard

7. “If the poor overweight jogger only knew how far he had to run to work off the calories in a crust of bread he might find it better in terms of pound per mile to go to a massage parlor.”
— Christiaan Barnard