Stepping up the Game of Healthcare

In 1967 healthcare changed in a whole different way, when the first heart transplant took place. “South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard conducted the first heart transplant on 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky. The surgery was a success. However, the medications that were given to Washkansky to prevent his immune system from attacking the new heart also suppressed his body's ability to fight off other illnesses. Eighteen days after the operation, Washkansky died of double pneumonia.” (Heart Transplant 1). The first clinical heart transplant experience quickly spread world-wide, and many surgeons began performing heart transplants. However, because many patients were dying soon after, the number of heart transplants dropped from around 100 in 1968, to below 20 in 1970. It was recognized that the major problem was the body's natural tendency to reject the new tissues. When the first heart transplant was completed it changed healthcare in a whole different way and we are very thankful for that.

The advances of the heart transplant has changed so many lives over the years. This opportunity has given many people a second chance at life. The first couple patients did not survive very long, but were brave enough to try and save their lives with it. Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on December 3, 1967. Although Mr. Louis Washkansky only lived for 18 days, if it wasn’t for him getting the very first heart transplant, we would not be where we are today. The reason to Mr. Washkansky’s death is because of succumbing in the end to pneumonia. The second heart transplant Barnard performed was on January 2, 1968 on Philip Blaiberg. Blaiberg survived for 19 months after getting sick from rejection (Christaan Barnard).

When Barnard performed the very first heart transplant there were many people extremely skeptical of this procedure. Families of available candidates did not want their family member to take the chance of losing their life over saving it. The first heart transplant sent a rage throughout the world, many people wanted to stop this because the odds of someone living after receiving this procedure was extremely low (First Heart Transplant).

The rate of heart transplants in the 1960s and 70s were in the hundreds, and today the number of heart transplants per year is roughly 5,000 (Dick Cheney 1). The success rates aren’t always high, given conditions of patients but doctors still try their hardest to save as many lives as they can. In the beginning, many heart recipient’s hearts failed less than a year after receiving them, today their likelihood of living longer than when they first became normal is so much greater. The rate of successful heart transplants are still increasing rapidly today. Many times I have heard amazing stories of miracles happening today because of some kind of organ transplant.

Complications are not rare at all, and were very common in the first several years of human heart transplants being performed. Many complications of a heart transplant surgery include bleeding, infection, blood clots, heart attack, stroke, and sometimes death. Another major complication is rejection. Rejection is where your body does not want to accept the donor body parts and causes your immune system to start attacking that part, which results in illness.

Doctors worked very hard to find a solution to stop patients bodies from rejecting the donor hearts and they found that making sure both of the patients blood types were the same, they had similar antigens. Tissue typing makes sure the organ or tissue is as similar as possible to the tissues of the recipient. The match can never be perfect unless you have identical twins because they have identical antigens.

In conclusion the first heart transplant changed the world in a whole different way, and changed healthcare in an amazing way. If transplants were not a successful long ago, our advances in healthcare would not exist today. With new advances in technology, the world continues to step up their game in healthcare every single day.

Works Cited

"Christiaan Barnard." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016.

"Dick Cheney Surgery: 7 Essential Facts About Heart Transplants." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016.

"Heart Transplant." American Heart Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.

History/146895108681487. "1967 - First Heart Transplant." About.com Education. N.p., 2006. Web. 14 Oct. 2016.

Picture from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/05/health/digital-doctor.html#/#time15_351