Esteemed heart transplant surgeon Dr. David K.C. Cooper has literally been on the cutting edge of medicine, having been a member of the team that performed the first successful heart transplants in the United Kingdom, and overseeing the heart transplant program at the University of Cape Town Medical School in South Africa, working under Dr. Christiaan Barnard. Open Heart tells the story behind the amazing advances in cardiovascular medicine as performed by the maverick doctors who strived to perfect them. Having interviewed many of the greatest heart surgeons in person during the past 20 years, this book benefits from the emption and excitement of these surgeons’ own words. These men affect everyday lives even more than the early astronauts, who, like these surgeons, had “the right stuff.” But who were they? What drove them to perform the feats they did? Beginning with Claudius Galen, second century A.D. physician to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and his observations of fallen gladiators, to the major 20th century innovators, Open Heart tells the stories and highlights from the careers of the greatest heart surgeons, including Christiaan Barnard, Denton Cooley, Michael Debakey, and many others. Because of these bold and brilliant physicians, blue babies no longer die at birth, young people can live well into old age, and damaged organs can be transplanted with healthy ones.

Dr. Cooper transforms himself as well, from heart surgeon (and colleague to many of the surgeons profiled in the book) to historian/storyteller as Open Heart portrays the remarkable doctors who have saved the lives of so many others.