Transplant Surgeon To Visit Green Lane Team

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31576, 13 January 1968, Page 32

Transplant Surgeon To Visit Green Lane Team

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, January 12. A surgeon who took part in the world’s first heart transplant operation in South Africa in December will arrive in Auckland oh Monday for talks with surgeons at Green Lane Hospital.

He is a former Aucklander, Dr Terence O’Donovan, who was one of the team which performed the transplant on Mr Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital.

Dr O’Donovan will spend several days in Auckland discussing the latest techniques with members of the Green Lane heart surgery team, who have themselves established an international reputation in this field.

“We want to find out all we can,” a Green Lane surgeon said today. “We want to put ourselves in the picture as thoroughly as possible.”

Dr O’Donovan’s visit raises speculation whether New Zealand intends soon to follow South Africa and the United States in attempting a heart transplant. Could Be Done Auckland surgeons say such a transplant could be done here now. They describe it as technically no more difficult than transplanting a heart valve—which is a commonplace operation at Green Lane Hospital. But they are anxious to learn more about the body’s rejection of foreign tissues (which is not a problem In valve transplants), before attempting to transfer a heart. Good progress is being

made in Auckland in the development of a serum to overcome this rejection, and local surgeons are taking a close interest in this work.

The principal members of the South African team, led by Professor Christian Barnard, were Dr Marius Barnard (the professor’s brother), Dr O’Donovan and Dr Rodney Hewitson. On N.Z. Register Dr O’Donovan trained at the Green Lane cardiothoracic unit and later went to South Africa, where he graduated in surgery at Witwatersrand University. He is still on the register of New Zealand medical practitioners. Professor Barnard also developed his interest in heart surgery at Green Lane. He came to the hospital in 1965 and gained his first experience of tissue grafting there, later going to the United States for further study.