Hamilton Naki facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Hamilton Naki
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| Born | June 26, 1926 Ngcingane, Centane, Transkei, South Africa
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| Died | May 29, 2005 (aged 78) Langa, Cape Town, South Africa
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| Children | 5 |
| Awards | The Bronze Order of Mapungubwe |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Organ transplantation |
| Institutions | University of Cape Town |
Hamilton Naki (26 June 1926 – 29 May 2005) was a laboratory assistant to cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard in South Africa. He was recognised for his surgical skills and for his ability to teach medical students and physicians such skills despite not having received a formal medical education, and took a leading role in organ transplant research on animals.
A controversy arose after his death in that at least five periodicals and the Associated Press retracted statements in their obituaries of Naki that claimed that he participated in the world's first human-to-human heart transplantation in 1967; the incident has been cited as an example of inadequate fact checking by the newsmedia and delayed corrections of the errors.
Early life
Naki was born to a poor family in Ngcingwane, a village in Centani in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. He received six years of education up to the age of 14, after which he moved to Cape Town. Beginning about 1940, he commuted from Langa, Cape Town to the University of Cape Town to work as a gardener, specifically rolling grass tennis courts.
Medical career and retirement
In 1954 Robert Goetz of the University's surgical faculty asked Naki to assist him with laboratory animals. Naki's responsibilities progressed from cleaning cages to performing anaesthesia. Most of Naki's work under Goetz involved anaesthetising dogs, but Naki also assisted in operating on a giraffe "to dissect the jugular venous valves to determine why giraffes do not faint when bending to drink."
Several years after Goetz left, Naki started working for Christiaan Barnard in the laboratory as an assistant. Barnard had studied open-heart surgery techniques in the United States and was bringing those techniques to South Africa. Naki first performed anaesthesia on animals for Barnard, but was then "appointed principal surgical assistant of the laboratory because of his remarkable skill and dexterity." Barnard was quoted as saying "If Hamilton had had the opportunity to study, he would probably have become a brilliant surgeon" and that Naki was "one of the great researchers of all time in the field of heart transplants".
In 1968, Barnard's cardiac surgical research team moved out of the surgical laboratory, and Naki helped develop the heterotopic or "piggyback" heart transplantation technique. In the 1970s, Naki left Barnard's team and returned to the surgical laboratory, this time working on liver transplantation. His contributions at this time were described as follows:
- Rosemary Hickman, transplantation surgeon whom Naki assisted and taught in the laboratory, and who worked with Naki for nearly 30 years: "Despite his limited conventional education, he had an amazing ability to learn anatomical names and recognize anomalies. His skills ranged from assisting to operating and he frequently prepared the donor animal (sometimes single-handedly) while another team worked on the recipient."
- Del Khan, head of Groote Schuur Hospital's organ transplant unit, whom Naki taught in the laboratory: "A liver transplant on a pig in the U.S. would involve a team of two or three medically qualified surgeons… Hamilton can do this all on his own."
- Ralph Kirsch, head of the Liver Research Centre at the University of Cape Town: “He was one of those remarkable men who really come around once in a long time. As a man without any education, he mastered surgical techniques at the highest level and passed them on to young doctors."
- Barnard: "A liver transplant is much more difficult than a heart transplant… [doctors who work with Naki] tell me that Hamilton can do all the various aspects of liver transplantation, which I can't do. So technically, he is a better surgeon than I am."
Naki taught many students during his career; although newsmedia accounts placed the number of students in the thousands, Hickman said that that number appears to have been exaggerated. Naki assisted Hickman until his retirement in 1991, after which he received "a gardener's pension: 760 rand, or about $275, a month."
Personal life, post-retirement activities and recognition, and death
Naki was reported to be married with four sons and one daughter. He lived in a small one-room house without electricity or running water and sent "most of his pay to his wife and family, left behind in Transkei," but "could pay for only one of his five children to stay to the end of high school." He was active in his church and read the Bible frequently.
After retirement, Naki helped the community of Kentani, where part of his family lived, for example "in the construction of a school and in the provision of a mobile clinic" by soliciting donations from his "medical contacts". He received public recognition of his medical work after his retirement, including:
- Metropolitan Eastern Cape Award, 2002.
- The Bronze Order of Mapungubwe, 2002, presented by President Thabo Mbeki. One of the highest South African civil honours, this Order is "awarded to South African citizens for excellence and exceptional achievement."
- BTWSC Black S/Heroes Award, 2003.
- An honorary master's degree from the University of Cape Town in 2003, presented by Chancellor Graça Machel. The honorary degree was described as MMed (Master of Medicine) in some sources and MSc (Master of Science) in others.
- Inclusion in a "senior civil guard of honour" at the 2004 opening of the Parliament of South Africa.
- In August 2017, the plain opposite the Christiaan Barnard Hospital in Cape Town was renamed from Salazar Plain to Hamilton Naki Square.
He died in Langa on 29 May 2005, aged 78, of "heart trouble."
