UMMC Mentioned in BuzzFeed List on Awesome Things in Mississippi

Photo courtesy of UMMC

Mississippi is well-known for its issues: poverty, obesity and lack of statewide internet, to name some off the top of head. However this past Tuesday the state was recognized for its contributions to the world whether it be selling the first pair of shoes in Vicksburg to the first lung transplant at UMMC.

The author, named “MissississippiMadness,” wrote on the BuzzFeed list about the UMMC’s historical first successful lung transplant.

“Breathe it in, Mississippi! We’re home to the world’s first successful, human lung transplant. The year was 1963, and the team was led by Dr. James D. Hardy, professor of surgery and chairman of the department at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

But it was the following year when an event at the young Medical Center really had the world’s press in a frenzy. Dr. Hardy and his team transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee – man’s closest genetic relation – into the chest of a dying man. The world’s first heart transplanted into man beat 90 minutes before it stopped.

Those first two operations in Mississippi – met with such dubious acceptance in the beginning – set the stage for all future heart and lung transplantation. They demonstrated that surgical techniques perfected in nine years of work on animals would work in humans. They proved that a transplanted lung would breathe and transplanted heart would beat and support a blood pressure in a human host.

When Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed his heart transplant in 1967 (the first ever in South Africa) he gave credit to the Mississippi team for the 1964 operation, saying it proved that ‘the feasibility of cardiac transplantation was now irrefutable.'”

Here is a video provided by UMMC in celebration of the 50th anniversary two years ago.

The author admitted the list could include “at least a million awesome things” about Mississippi if such a list wouldn’t break BuzzFeed. Do you know any Mississippi celebratory facts the list left out? Let us know!

Callie Daniels is a staff reporter for HottyToddy.com. She can be reached at callie.daniels@hottytoddy.com.