Brian Barratt-Boyes

Who was Brian Barratt-Boyes?

Sir Brian Gerald Barratt-Boyes, KBE was a pioneering heart surgeon from New Zealand.

Barratt-Boyes went to Victoria University before study medicine at Otago's Medical School, graduating in 1946. He continued his training as a surgeon, initially in New Zealand, and later at the Mayo Clinic and as a Nuffield Fellow in Bristol. At Mayo he worked under John W. Kirklin, the two developing a high mutual regard that endured and grew over the years.

In 1956 he was recruited back to Auckland, New Zealand by Sir Douglas Robb, and pioneered the development of cardiopulmonary bypass in that country, the first patient being operated on in 1958. While this task must have been made more difficult by New Zealand's relative remoteness and small population, the Greenlane Hospital surgical team quickly achieved an international reputation for innovative excellence. Indeed he suggested that Auckland's isolation conferred an advantage comparable to that enjoyed by the Mayo Clinic in small-town Rochester, Minnesota, making it less likely that day-to-day interruptions would interfere with the real purpose of their work. Much of the original equipment had to be fashioned or modified locally. Sid Yarrow, an engineer on the team, built an early external pacemaker for intra-operative use. The first permanent unit, from Medtronic, was implanted in 1961.