Talking Heart to Heart

A patient sits in a hospital bed. His breathing is labored; the slightest exertion leaves him weak and exhausted. With every beat, his heart struggles to move the blood throughout his body. Tired and weak, his heart cannot continue much longer. This patient is in desperate need of a heart transplant. At this point this is the only thing that will save this man’s life. The family anxiously sits by his bedside, hoping for what to them is a disturbing wish – a new heart. They know that only through someone else’s death can their loved one have life.
The story of heart transplants has its roots in Europe during the Second World War. As the war raged on, many of the wounded were brought to field hospitals. Among the capable doctors was a young American surgeon named Dr. Dwight Harken. Many of the wounded that came to his table had either bullets or other shrapnel lodged in their hearts, among other wounds. While it was apparent that the foreign body needed to be removed from the heart in order to survive, the actual act of removal would also kill the patient. He knew that something had to be done to save the patients’ lives.

Dr. Harken decided at that time to begin researching and experimenting on animals. The young surgeon was determined to develop a reliable technique to successfully operate on the heart. The procedure he attempted to perfect was to remove shrapnel from the patient’s heart. After opening the patient up, he went to work on the heart. A small incision was made on the side of the still-beating heart, and then a finger was inserted into the opening. Feeling around, the shrapnel would be found and removed. After this procedure, the patient would be closed up to recover. In theory...