Victor+Chang,+heart+transplant+pioneer

=Victor Chang, heart transplant pioneer=

Victor Chang, AC (1936-1991) was a cardiac surgeon who operated on the human heart.

He was born in Shanghai in China but when the Japanese army attacked the city in 1938 his family moved to Chung K'ing as refugees. Then they moved to Hong Kong because they did not want to live under a communist government.

In Hong Kong Chang's mother became sick with breast cancer. He tried to save her using Chinese medicine but she got worse and his father sent her to Australia for surgery. But by then it was too late and she died. That was when Victor realised that he wanted to become a doctor, so that others would not suffer like his mother did.

In 1952 when Victor was still a teenager, his father sent him to Australia with his sister to be educated. They did not speak English and were very lonely. His sister was so unhappy she went back to Hong Kong, but Victor stuck it out and stayed at school. He still wasn't very good at English and he didn't study very hard because he liked making models of ships, gliders and remote-control cars.

But he passed well enough, and studied medicine at the University of Sydney. He finished his training in England and America.

He worked at St Vincent's Hospital where he set up a heart and lung transplant unit. At that time, there had not been many heart transplants, but Chang's team was very successful. Between 1984 and 1990 they did more than 197 heart transplants and 14 heart-lung transplants and more than 90% of the patients survived. [|Fiona Coote]was his most famous patient. Aged 14, she was his youngest heart transplant patient ever.

In 1986, he was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

He also pioneered the development of an artificial heart valve, and was working on developing an artificial heart when he was shot dead by criminals from Malaysia in 1991.

Sources: [|Victor Chang, Wikipedia] Victor Change, Healer of Hearts, by Mark Butler, Reed Library Makes and Shakers series, 1997, ISBN 9781863915823