Magdi Yacoub facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Magdi Yacoub
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Yacoub in 2008
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| Born | 16 November 1935 Bilbeis, Sharqia, Kingdom of Egypt
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| Citizenship | United Kingdom Egypt |
| Education | Cairo University |
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| Medical career | |
| Profession | Surgeon |
| Institutions | University of Chicago Harefield Hospital of Imperial College London |
| Sub-specialties | Cardiothoracic surgery Heart transplantation |
| Awards | Order of Merit Knight Bachelor Order of the Nile |
Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub (born 16 November 1935) is an Egyptian-British retired professor and a famous heart surgeon. He is known for his amazing work with heart operations, especially for people who needed new hearts or had problems with their heart valves.
Sir Magdi helped start the heart transplant center at Harefield Hospital in 1980. He also developed special ways to fix heart valves and perform complex operations on babies born with heart conditions. He has received many awards for his life-saving work and continues to help children through his charities.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Magdi Habib Yacoub was born on 16 November 1935 in Bilbeis, El Sharqia, Egypt. His family was Coptic Christian, and they moved to different small towns when he was growing up. His father was also a surgeon.
When Magdi was young, his youngest aunt passed away at age 22 from a heart problem that could have been fixed with surgery. This sad event, along with his father being a surgeon, inspired him to study medicine and become a heart doctor. He wanted to help people who didn't have access to the right medical care.
At just 15 years old, he earned a scholarship and started studying at the University of Cairo College of Medicine.
Early Surgical Career
In 1957, Magdi Yacoub finished his medical studies at Cairo University. After two years of training in surgery, he moved to Britain in the early 1960s. There, he continued his studies and worked at Guy's Hospital.
Heart Valve Surgery
In 1964, he started working at the National Heart and Chest Hospitals. He teamed up with another heart surgeon, Donald Ross. Together, they worked on fixing heart valves for people with serious heart problems. Heart valves are like doors in your heart that control blood flow. If they don't work right, it can cause serious illness.
They helped patients who were very sick and not expected to live long. All of these patients survived their operations, which was a huge success!
One important operation he performed was the Ross procedure. In this surgery, a diseased aortic valve (a main heart valve) is replaced with the patient's own healthy pulmonary valve (another heart valve). This was especially good for growing children because the new valve could grow with them. It also meant they didn't need to take blood-thinning medicines for the rest of their lives. Sir Magdi even made changes to this operation, creating the Ross-Yacoub procedure.
He became known for taking on difficult cases, earning him the nickname "Magdi's midnight stars." This meant he would operate on patients whom other doctors thought were too sick to be helped.
Later, in 1968, he moved to the United States and worked at the University of Chicago.
Harefield Hospital
In 1973, Sir Magdi became a top heart surgeon at Harefield Hospital in West London. He had accepted the job before going to the US, so he felt it was important to return. At Harefield, he worked closely with Rosemary Radley-Smith, a specialist in children's heart conditions.
In 1974, Sir Magdi was part of the team that performed the first open heart surgery in Nigeria.
Arterial Switch Operation
In 1977, he developed a two-step operation called the arterial switch operation (ASO). This surgery helps older patients who were born with a condition where the main arteries leaving the heart are swapped around.
Harefield Hospital Transplant Unit
Sir Magdi started the heart transplant program at Harefield Hospital in 1980. His first patient was Derrick Morris, who lived for 25 years after his transplant. He became Europe's longest-surviving heart transplant patient at the time.
Two years later, he performed a heart transplant on John McCafferty, who lived for over 33 years. In 2013, John was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's longest-surviving heart transplant patient.
In December 1983, Sir Magdi performed the UK's first combined heart and lung transplant at Harefield.
From 1986 to 2006, he was a professor of heart surgery at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College. He also started the journal Disease Models & Mechanisms.
Throughout his career, he treated many famous people, including comedian Eric Morecambe and actor Omar Sharif.
Later Career
Sir Magdi retired from the National Health Service (NHS) in 2001 when he was 65 years old.
Even after retiring, he continued to be involved in groundbreaking work. In 2006, he led a complex operation where a patient's original heart, which had been left in during a transplant years earlier, had recovered enough for the transplanted heart to be removed.
In 2007, a research team led by Sir Magdi announced they had grown part of a human heart valve using stem cells. This was a huge step forward in medical science.
In 2025, he revealed a new "living valve" for heart patients. This special valve is made from materials that the body can accept and grow into a fully working, natural valve. This means patients might not need more surgeries later on, and their bodies are less likely to reject the new valve.
Charities
In 1995, Sir Magdi founded the charity "Chain of Hope". Through this charity, he continued to perform operations on children, especially in areas where there aren't many specialist heart surgery centers. The charity helps children get the life-saving heart operations they need.
He is also the head of the Magdi Yacoub Global Heart Foundation, which he co-founded in 2008. This foundation started the Aswan Heart project and opened the Aswan Heart Centre in Egypt the following year. This center provides free, high-quality heart care to those in need.
Honours and Awards
Sir Magdi Yacoub has received many important awards and honours for his contributions to medicine:
- 1988: Bradshaw Lecture, Royal College of Physicians.
- 1992: He was made a Knight by the Queen, allowing him to use the title "Sir."
- 1998: Ray C. Fish Award for Scientific Achievement in Cardiovascular Disease.
- 1998: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, a very important group of scientists.
- 1999: Lifetime outstanding achievement award from the Secretary of State for Health (UK).
- 2003: Golden Hippocrates International Award for Excellence in Cardiac Surgery.
- WHO Prize for Humanitarian Services.
- 2004: Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation.
- 2006: Gold Medal from the European Society of Cardiology.
- 2007: Pride of Britain Award.
- 2011: Order of the Nile for science and humanity, a high honour in Egypt.
- 2014: Appointed to the Order of Merit, a special honour given by the British monarch.
- 2015: Lister Medal for his contributions to surgical science.
- 2019: Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor Achievement Award.
Personal and Family
Sir Magdi is married to Marianne, and they have three children and several grandchildren.
In his free time, he enjoys swimming, listening to classical music, and growing beautiful orchids.
Selected Publications
Books
- Annual of Cardiac Surgery. Current Science (1994).
- Cardiac Valve Allografts : Science and Practice. Steinkopff-Verlag Heidelberg (1997).
Articles
- British Journal of Diseases of the Chest. Vol. 60, Issue 3 (July 1966), p. 144-147.
- Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases. Vol. 11, Issue 4 (January 1969), pp. 275–293. With Donald Ross
- The Lancet. Vol. 1, Issue 8025 (June 1977), pp. 1275–8. Co-authored with R. Radley-Smith and R. Maclaurin.
- The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Vol. 110, Issue 1 (July 1995), pp. 186–194. Yacoub et al
- Circulation. Vol. 92, Issue 2 (15 July 1995), pp. 156–157.
- Journal of Heart Valve Disease. Vol. 15, No. 4 (July 2006), pp. 531–9. Yacoub et al.
- British Medical Journal. Vol. 342, 26 May 2011. Co-authored with Tom Treasure and Asif Hasan
- Heart. Vol. 100, Issue 24 (16 October 2014), pp. 1905–1906. Co-authored with Ismail El-Hamamsy
Images for kids
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National Heart Hospital
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Ross Procedure
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Arterial switch operation
See also
In Spanish: Magdi Yacoub para niños
