This picture was taken in 1987 shortly after the first heart transplant ever undertaken in Poland. Der surgery lasted for 23 hours and you can see the leading surgeon Dr. Zbigniew Religa sitting exhausted next to the patient while an assistant fell asleep in the back. The patient Tadeusz Żytkiewicz would continue to live until 2017, outliving Dr. Religa for 8 years.
Today, about 3.500 heart transplants take place in the world every year.
