The King of Hearts, Egyptian-born Magdi Yacoub, has won international acclaim in the field of cardiac surgery and is also privileged to be a link in the Chain that saves children’s lives the world over.
The scene is repeated regularly in developing countries. As Professor Magdi Yacoub’s plane touches the tarmac, often a four-year-old child is breathless and blue on torn sheets of a remote hospital and fighting for his or her life. With the arrival of Sir Magdi, the parents are confident that their child will be saved. For many patients, he is the last hope.
Affectionately known as the ‘Pharaoh’ to colleagues and parents alike, renowned heart surgeon, Magdi Yacoub worked at Harefield Hospital in England where he began the transplant programme in 1980 with a heart transplant for Derrick Morris, who became Europe’s longest surviving heart transplant recipient, living until the year 2005. Two years later, he performed a heart transplant on John McCafferty, who survived for more than 33 years and was recognised as the world’s longest surviving heart transplant patient by the Guinness World Records in 2013. In December 1983, Yacoub performed the UK’s first combined heart and lung transplant at Harefield.
His father was a surgeon and Sir Magdi recollects an incident that occurred when he was seven that had a great impact on him. His father’s vivacious younger sister was just 22 when she gave birth to her first child. Shortly afterwards, she died of mitral stenosis, which is a narrowing of the heart valve. It was a condition that was just starting to be operated on in Britain, but his father was powerless to save her.
Sir Magdi has always worked and dreamt of bringing medical expertise to the under-privileged and those in need. Perhaps it was this deep commitment and resolve to be there for the hundreds of children, particularly babies who would not have lived to adulthood without the intervention of a cardiac surgeon, that spurred him on to set up the UK branch of the charity, ‘Chain of Hope’. Chain of Hope links experts together around the world to bring life-saving heart treatments to children in developing and war-torn countries. In 2008, he co-founded the Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation, which runs the Aswan Heart Centre in Egypt.
“I have been privileged to have been able to help people. Heart surgery has the capacity to transform people’s lives, sometimes dramatically, and in a very short period of time, the children improve. It is wonderful to give that gift to people, no matter how many times you do it.” He continues, “I have been aware of how precious life can be, but when you do not succeed the sense of loss is devastating. Unfortunately, we cannot save everyone.”
A surgeon works like a fine artist, especially in Sir Magdi’s vocation of operating on babies and children with cardiac problems. Was the young Magdi particularly gifted in using his hands as a child? “I enjoyed drawing but I would not say I was exceptional in that regard,” he replied. “I loved music and books and I suppose I was quite a deeper thinker for someone so young. I was a bit of a loner and used to sit in corners, not speaking much to anyone. At one stage, people thought I was strange and suggested taking me to a psychologist!”
He has saved so many lives that there has been talk that he had insured his hands. “I am not obsessed about my hands,” he said, “I try to live a ‘normal’ life but I look after my hands.” He said he can see a time when preventative heart medicine will mean that a surgeon can hang up his scalpel for good.
If this larger-than-life man had a last wish to make, that he knew would be fulfilled, what would he ask for? “Without hesitation,” Sir Magdi said, “to wipe out heart disease and all the suffering that goes with it.”
