A doctor stares at a monitor while his assistant sleeps in the corner. This photograph, taken in 1987, is one of the most famous images in the history of medicine. Polish cardiac surgeon Zbigniew Religa monitors his patient’s vital signs after an extremely demanding 23-hour operation.
The operation, which was considered almost impossible at the time, was a success. The patient, Tadeusz Żytkiewicz, lived for another 30 years with his new heart. He died in 2017, outliving even his own surgeon.
The historic image was captured by photographer James Stanfield while he was preparing a report on Poland’s outdated and crisis-stricken healthcare system in the 1980s. National Geographic named it the “Picture of the Year” for 1987 and included it among the 100 most important photographs in history.
Zbigniew Religa was a pioneer of heart transplantation in Poland. He graduated from medical school in Warsaw in 1963 and later received further training in vascular and cardiac surgery in New York and Detroit. From 1984 onward, he headed the cardiac surgery clinic in Zabrze, where he performed the country’s first successful heart transplant. The donor heart was transported from Warsaw to Zabrze after the donor had been declared brain-dead. In addition, in 1995, Religa became the first surgeon to transplant an artificial heart valve made from human cadaver tissue.
Although he helped extend the lives of others, Religa himself was a heavy smoker. He died of lung cancer on March 8, 2009. He was known to be an atheist, so his funeral was held at a non-Catholic cemetery and broadcast live on television.
Both photographer James Stanfield and the patient himself, Tadeusz Żytkiewicz, attended the surgeon’s funeral. The 88-year-old Żytkiewicz held the legendary photograph in his hands throughout the ceremony — the image that immortalized the story of the surgeon and the patient whose life he saved.
