Dr. Christiaan Barnard was a South African cardiac surgeon remembered for performing the world’s first human-to-human heart transplantation. Born as the son of a Dutch missionary in the arid Karoo region of South Africa, he earned his medical degree from the University of Cape Town Medical School. While serving as general physician in South Africa, he investigated into intestinal atresia and a found a cure for it. Later he attended the University of Minnesota, from where he obtained his PhD and also received his training in cardiac surgery. On returning home, he performed a number of heart surgeries before coming across a 54-year-old terminally ill grocer who was willing to undergo heart transplantation. Although the operation was successful, the patient succumbed to double pneumonia within eighteen days. Undeterred, he continued performing heart transplantations and invented a piggyback technology, which largely increased the survival rate. Unlike most other successful surgeons, he was very charismatic and was sought after by celebrities across the world. He firmly opposed apartheid and often courted controversy by employing black nurses.