One Surgeon Looks at Human Heart Transplantation

¹ Clinical Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School: Chief of Thoracic Surgery, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Mount Auburn Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

1. Conditions requisite to surgical centers entering upon human heart transplantation programs are outlined: by definition and by inference.

2. Hopefully, the role of "the doctor playing God" is placed in realistic perspective. The public's duty is restated toward reducing the burdens of this dangerously flexible, but very old responsibility. Public responsibility in determining priorities in the expenditure of public funds and the serious limitations of existing clinical and research facilities are related to human heart transplantation, public health, and preventive medicine.

3. Some consequences of premature overexposure in the communication media may: mix the dangers and benefits of competition, be constructive or destructive to the medical image and, directly and indirectly, alter the efficacy of the physician and the quality of medical care.

4. Moral and legal discussions are found helpful if they clarify, and harmful if they over-restrict. The conscience of the medical personnel predicated on enlightened patient- and self-interest remain the bulwark of patient and public protection. If legalistic and moral dogma move toward euthanasia or delay through committee bureaucracy, they constitute harmful forces.