Adrian Kantrowitz

Who was Adrian Kantrowitz?

Adrian Kantrowitz was an American cardiac surgeon whose team performed the world's first pediatric heart transplant at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn on December 6, 1967. The actual surgery was performed in the middle of the night by his resident. It was only the second time that a human heart had been transplanted into another human being, taking place just three days after Christiaan Barnard's seminal attempt in South Africa made headlines around the world and ushered in a new era in clinical organ transplantation. Kantrowitz also invented the intra-aortic balloon pump, a left ventricular assist device, and an early version of the implantable pacemaker.