Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
South African heart surgeon who performed the world's first human heart transplant.
On the island
Eight records
Spanish EyesFavourite
Bert Kaempfert and His Orchestra
Spanish Eyes uh was the song that uh was played when I met my present wife Barbara. And every time when we were at a at a restaurant or a or a discotheque and they should play this record, then we remember Isquia.
Barbara and myself were at a uh restaurant one night and the leader of this band came to me and said, They haven't uh made a hit record for a long time in South Africa. He says, and I wanted you to tell me whether you like this particular song. So they played and sang the song A Rose Has to Die. And I said to him, I think it's going to be a tremendous hit.
I think this is one of the greatest recordings ever made.
It's a very sad story and I sometimes enjoy sadness and uh that's why I I like this record very much.
I thought this was a great movie and I think the theme uh is very beautiful.
I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)
I saw him on television in the United States when I was studying there. when I was very lonely too. And uh he impressed me very much as a humble, very nice man and uh I always enjoyed his music and I think uh this one, a particular record is really a very, very nice song.
Louis Armstrong has always been one of my heroes. I I think he was a great man and uh anything that he sang or played, I enjoyed and I especially like this one.
I have still a young wife, and I wonder sometimes will she still love me when I'm 64? I'm sure she would.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31Have you ever experienced loneliness?
Oh, yes, often. Uh even loneliness with people around me I've experienced. For example, after my first transplant patient died. I remembered very clearly it was early in the morning as the sun was coming up in the eastern sky. He died and I had people around me, but I've never been so lonely in my life.
Presenter asks
1:00What would you be happiest to have got away from?
The telephone. The telephone is my biggest enemy because every time it rings, especially at night, it usually means uh there are problems.
Presenter asks
4:27Why did you decide on medicine?
I really became influenced by my brother, my eldest brother, who was at university and was studying engineering. He had friends who were in medical school, and uh him talking about the medical students uh made me interested uh in medicine.
Presenter asks
7:14How did you get your chance to go out [to the United States] and work in that research unit?
The keepsakes
The book
Herman Charles Bosman
It'll have to be something amusing. ... I would like to have a book called The Best of Bosman, which is very amusing stories about life in South Africa.
This was also purely by accident. I was coming back one afternoon from the cafeteria at the medical school in Cape Town. And I bumped into the professor of medicine and he said to me, Chris, how would you like to go to the United States? I never had an idea to go to the United States. I said, well, give me some time to think about it. Through this professor of medicine, Professor Brock, I ended up in the United States.
Presenter asks
12:32To what extent is [your novel, The Unwanted] autobiographical?
To a large extent, you know the novel actually has two characters, a a color doctor in South Africa and a white doctor in South Africa. And both characters are really um autobiographical in that the white doctor becomes a heart surgeon. So I describe a lot of my own experiences, my response to stress, to failure, to success. And then as far as the black doctor is concerned, there is no such character. We sought him out. and imagined him. And there I put my place in the man in the in the in the shoes of a as a colored man in South Africa becomes a doctor and has to suffer the humiliation of the petty apartheid that we unfortunately still have in that country.
Presenter asks
16:31Would the situation [on a desert island] start up any irrational fears?
I don't think so. You know, I'm a a product of the of the South African countryside. And as a result of that, I think I could probably look after myself very well if there's water, fruit and wild animals. I think I could be able to survive quite well on an island alone.
“I had people around me, but I've never been so lonely in my life.”
“The telephone is my biggest enemy because every time it rings, especially at night, it usually means uh there are problems.”
“I think that uh the only stumbling block uh still is rejection, which is the body's ability to recognize the transplant heart as foreign and it therefore then sets up a reaction to the foreignness and that eventually will kill the transplant heart unless you do something about it.”