December 3rd

On this day – 3 December 1967 – The first human-to human heart transplant

The first heart transplant from a human to another human was conducted by the South African Surgeon Christian Barnard. This was not the first heart transplant to a human, but the first human to human heart transplant. Three years earlier had Dr. James Hardy performed a heart transplant from a chimpanzee to a human, but the patient had died only 90 minutes later. Barnard’s surgery in 1967 was more successful and his patient managed to self sustains the new heart. The patient, Louis Washkansky, sadly died of pneumonia 18 days after the surgery.  

The surgery was at the time highly experimental. Barnard had practiced on animals previously, but this was the first human to human heart transplant. The operation had taken a total on 9 hours and it was a 25 year old car crash victim which was the donor. It took only three days from the first heart transplant were conducted to a new one was tried, this time a pediatric heart transplant in the US. Although this was not a successful transplant either continued surgeons to build on the work. Today is heart transplant considered a fairly common surgery, and around 3000 are done each year.

We would like to urge everyone to sign up as a donor so that more people can be saved. 

Christian Barnard, the first doctor to do a human heart to heart transplant