Quantcast
ZME Science
  • CoronavirusNEW
  • News
  • Environment
    • Climate
    • Animals
    • Renewable Energy
    • Eco tips
    • Environmental Issues
    • Green Living
  • Health
    • Alternative Medicine
    • Anatomy
    • Diseases
    • Genetics
    • Mind & Brain
    • Nutrition
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
    • Feature Post
    • Art
    • Great Pics
    • Design
    • Fossil Friday
    • AstroPicture
    • GeoPicture
    • Did you know?
    • Offbeat
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Other Feature Post

The history of a picture that changed the world

National Geographic chose this as the best picture of 1987, and for good reason.

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
May 5, 2020
in Feature Post, Great Pics
Zbigniew Religa after a 23 hour heart transplant, watching his patient’s vital signs. Image via National Geographic.

National Geographic chose this as the best picture of 1987, and for good reason. Here, we see Dr. Zbigniew Religa keeping watch on the vital signs of a patient after a 23 hour heart surgery he conducted. In the lower right corner, you can see one of his colleagues who helped him with the surgery fallen asleep. Dr. Religa was a pioneer of heart transplantation in Poland, and even though the surgery was considered borderline impossible at the time, he took the chance, and the operation was entirely successful. Today, even though Dr. Religa’s heart has stopped beating, the one of his patient is still running.

Zbigniew Religa conducted the first successful heart transplantation in the country, and in June 1995 he was the first surgeon to graft an artificial valve created from materials taken from human corpses. In parallel to being a surgeon he also had a successful political carreer, though outside Poland he is still chiefly known for his medical achievements. In 1993, he became a member of the Polish senate and was re-elected in 2001. He was a promising candidate in the 2005 Polish presidential elections; even as he backed out of the presidential race with only 6% of the votes, he earned significant respect from the Polish population.

In 1987, the proposed heart transplant procedure received the green light, and Religa didn’t waste a single moment. The surgery was extremely demanding, lasting 23 hours, at the end of which Religa was photographed looking at his patient’s vital signs. The angst and fatigue really transcend the image, and the more you look at it, the more you see – everything adds a new dimension. The surgeon sleeping in the corner, the bloody mess, the myriad of cables… I just don’t get tired of looking at it. But when James Stansfield took this picture, he didn’t just tell a story of a surgery – in a way, he changed the world.

Tadeusz Zitkevits, the patient who received the heart transplant, 25 years after the surgery. Image via National Geographic.

He showed a different side of modern medicine – he showed that it’s possible to achieve the impossible. It’s a hard, it takes a long time and it’s exhausting, but you can transplant a man’s heart and make him healthy again. The fact that his patient, Tadeusz Zitkevits, outlived Religa is only a testament of the surgery’s success.

This video is in Polish, but it’s well worth it; it captures some moments of celebration after the surgery and bits of footage from the actual surgery.

Get more science news like this...

Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

Today, heart transplants save many lives which would otherwise be doomed. While it’s not technically a cure for heart or coronary disease, heart transplants typically have very good survival rates. It’s thanks to very talented and caring doctors like Zbigniew Religa that this is possible today; and it’s thanks to photographers like James Stansfield that we can truly admire their work.

Tags: national geographicZbigniew Religa
Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today.

Follow ZME on social media

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Coronavirus
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Coronavirus
  • News
  • Environment
    • Climate
    • Animals
    • Renewable Energy
    • Eco tips
    • Environmental Issues
    • Green Living
  • Health
    • Alternative Medicine
    • Anatomy
    • Diseases
    • Genetics
    • Mind & Brain
    • Nutrition
  • Future
  • Space
  • Feature
    • Feature Post
    • Art
    • Great Pics
    • Design
    • Fossil Friday
    • AstroPicture
    • GeoPicture
    • Did you know?
    • Offbeat
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.