where was the first heart transplant performed in the united states
Heart transplantation Not having a human donor heart available, James D. Hardy of the University of Mississippi Medical Center transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee into the chest of a dying Boyd Rush in the early morning of Jan. 24, 1964. Hardy used a defibrillator to shock the heart to restart beating. This heart did beat in Rush's chest for 60 to 90 minutes (sources vary), and then Rush died without regaining consciousness.[5][6][7] Although Hardy was a respected surgeon who had performed the world's first human-to-human lung transplant a year earlier,[8][9] author Donald McRae states that Hardy could feel the "icy disdain" from fellow surgeons at the Sixth International Transplantation Conference several weeks after this attempt with the chimpanzee heart.[10] Hardy had been inspired by the limited success of Keith Reemtsma at Tulane University in transplanting chimpanzee kidneys into human patients with kidney failure.[11] The consent form Hardy asked Rush's step sister to sign did not include the possibility that a chimpanzee heart might be used, although Hardy stated that he did include this in verbal discussions.[6][11][12]
Christiaan Barnard Christiaan Neethling Barnard (8 November 1922 – 2 September 2001) was a South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant on 3 December 1967 at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.[1][2] Growing up in Beaufort West, Cape Province, he studied medicine and practised for several years in his native country.[3] As a young doctor experimenting on dogs, Barnard developed a remedy for the infant defect of intestinal atresia. His technique saved the lives of ten babies in Cape Town and was adopted by surgeons in Britain and the United States.[4] In 1955, he travelled to the United States and was initially assigned further gastrointestinal work by Owen Harding Wangensteen.[5] He was introduced to the heart-lung machine, and Barnard was allowed to transfer to the service run by open heart surgery pioneer Walt Lillehei.[6] Upon returning to South Africa in 1958, Barnard was appointed head of the Department of Experimental Surgery at the Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town.[7]