GROOTE SCHUUR HOSPITAL – LANDMARK EVENTS

1938 – Groote Schuur Hospital opens to the public

1955 – The first operation in Africa to remove a tumour on the adrenal gland of a patient with primary aldosteronism is successfully performed

1955 – Dr James Louw, from GSH’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, introduces the pap smear to South Africa

1957 – Allan Cormack develops a prototype of the world’s first CAT scanner (and in 1979 jointly wins the Nobel Prize for his contribution to x-ray computed topography)

1958 – Africa’s first successful open-heart surgery is performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard

1967 – Members of the university and hospital develop the world’s first blood warming machine

1967 – The world’s first human heart transplant is performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard

1975 – The world’s first vascularized human fallopian tube transplant is performed by Dr Brian Cohen

1981 – Mr W. N. Wicomb develops a method for storing and preserving donor hearts (another world first)

1983 – The world’s first liver transplant using a heterotopic technique from a liver grown on a pig’s back is performed at GSH

1986 – the Cape’s first test tube twins are born

1989 – A technique to locate brain tumours without invasive surgery is discovered

2003 – The hospital makes the world’s first successful delivery of a baby grown attached to the mother’s liver, rather than the uterus

2013 – The first operation for a brain tumour using intra-operative fluorescence is conducted at a South African public hospital

2015 – Dr Chin implants the world’s smallest pacemaker into a patient – the first such procedure in the MEA region

2017 – Professor Semple and Dr Mustak perform the world’s first endoscopic minimally invasive surgery using the eye socket as an entry point