The story of the first human heart transplants and how the protocols for performing them were developed. Far from being as dry as that sounds, this is a compelling and interesting story of the life of the man who performed the very first human heart transplant. Did you know that the first heart transplant was done in South Africa? And the surgeon who performed that transplant was the son of a poor curate whose responsibility was a church of colored people — this took place during Apartheid, so there was little respect or social status afforded to this family, and the father’s salary was a third that of the pastor of the white folks.
From those inauspicious beginnings came Christiaan Barnard, who studied first in his homeland, then in America. The book details his journey through the field of medicine and the life events that spurred his desire to defeat heart disease and to perfect the operation that would pioneer the way to saving thousands of lives.