Christiaan Barnard The Surgeon Who Dared [Hardcover]

From humble beginnings as a barefoot boy in a small town in the heart of South Africa, he learned to mix with presidents and prime ministers, with royalty and popes, and quickly embraced the high-life of the jet-set who surrounded him. Throughout life, he was a serial womanizer, bedding famous European film stars (and their secretaries). He survived three tempestuous marriages and divorces, each wife becoming younger than the last until their age difference reached 40 years. This scientifically-trained surgeon called on the services of a witchdoctor (a sangoma)unsuccessfullyto help punish those who had contributed to the break-up of his second marriage. With no experience himself, he trained his daughter to become the second-ranked water skier in the world, though he was disappointed she never became world champion. Perhaps the immense effort he put into driving her to success accounted for the relative neglect of his oldest son, who, as a young doctor, suffered increasing depression until he died of a drug overdose at an early age. The surgeon pursued his goals in heart surgery despite a lifetime of pain from arthritis and a disability from asthma, which might eventually have killed him.Having established the first major heart surgery program in Africa, he eventually became distracted by other interests until he was a mere shadow in his own department. Yet he remained in the public eye through his gifts for public speaking and as a writer. He traveled the world; published two autobiographies; wrote popular books on health for the public, particularly relating to heart disease and arthritis; and penned books on such varied subjects as the politics of apartheid in his homeland, and euthanasia. He became a well-regarded and popular columnist for several South African newspapers and collaborated on the writing of four novels. He branched into the business world and expanded the meager financial rewards earned from his surgical services to the South African healthl,