The Heart is My Passion

If it had been up to his father, he would have become a railwayman. But Roland Hetzer, who came to Augsburg from the Sudetenland as a refugee in 1946, had other plans. He wanted to study medicine and become a doctor. He was particularly interested in heart surgery. On a July day in 1983, when he arrived at the hospital, the cardiac surgeon received the news that a donor heart had arrived following the accidental death of a 15-year-old girl. And a recipient was already waiting. Hetzer acted immediately – and transplanted his first heart. In doing so, he entered a »terra incognita« in Germany that only a select few had ventured to before him. He subsequently became one of the greatest pioneers of heart surgery worldwide. In 1985, he began to set up and grow the Herzzentrum Berlin as its medical director. It quickly became a go-to place for celebrities. Was the famous North Korean patient really Kim Jong-un? He reveals nothing. To him, it is more important to talk about his involvement in setting up a heart surgery in Sarajevo after the Bosnian war. Or about his commitment to gender medicine. About heart transplants in children. About his first successful transplant of an artificial heart. All feats of a pioneer.

An autobiography that tells the history of heart surgery in Germany but that is above all the story of a courageous doctor who set new standards in medicine.