Description
Join us as we explore the cultural history of the early heart transplants – focusing both on Christiaan Barnard’s first transplant in December 1967 and the first three British attempts in 1968 – 1969, but more generally on the first wave of transplants in the late 1960s.
We’ll review the publicity management behind these breakthrough operations. Medicine is now highly managed – with press conferences and hospital PR staff on hand, but in the late 1960s, this was all completely new.
what will the day include?
Develop the capacity for critical thinking about the nature, ends and limits of medicine – how the high profile mediation of the early heart transplants contributed to a 10 year international moratorium.
Identify successes and failures in the history of medical professionalism – how the heart transplants and publicity surrounding them challenged and transformed established professional ethical codes of conducts.
Recognise the dynamic interrelationship between medicine and society through history.
Respond to changes in medical practice guided by a historically informed concept of professional responsibility and patient advocacy- looking at the dual role of media consumers also being medical consumers – and how the high mortality rate of the early heart transplants and ethical controversies for example surrounding brain death undermined trust in the medical profession as a whole.
agenda
5.30 pm
Registration, tea and coffee
6.00 pm
Introduction
Dr John Harcup
6.05 pm
Hearts Exposed: Transplants and the Media in 1960s Britain – a turning point in medical-media relations
Dr Ayesha Nathoo, Research Fellow, University of Exeter
6.55 pm
Questions
7.15 pm
Close of meeting
7.20 pm
Dinner – for those who have pre-booked