12 Facts About Hamilton Naki

Hamilton Naki was a South African laboratory assistant known for his contributions to surgical research and medical training despite having no formal medical training.

Hamilton Naki worked with cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at the University of Cape Town, where he was involved with organ transplant research on animals and trained medical students in surgical techniques.

Hamilton Naki received six years of education up to the age of 14, after which he moved to Cape Town.

In 1954 Robert Goetz of the University's surgical faculty asked Hamilton Naki to assist him with laboratory animals.

Several years after Goetz left, Hamilton Naki started working for Christiaan Barnard in the laboratory as an assistant.

In 1968, Barnard's cardiac surgical research team moved out of the surgical laboratory, and Hamilton Naki helped develop the heterotopic or "piggyback" heart transplantation technique.

Hamilton 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.

Hamilton Naki was reported to be married with four sons and one daughter.

Hamilton Naki received public recognition of his medical work after his retirement, including:.

Between 14 July 2005 and 3 September 2005, the five aforementioned periodicals and the Associated Press issued formal retractions of statements in their obituaries of Hamilton Naki that claimed that he participated in the world's first human-to-human heart transplantation.

Evidence cited in 2005 that Hamilton Naki was not present at the first transplant included:.

Marius Barnard was quoted as describing the claims in the film that Hamilton Naki removed the donor heart as "rubbish, a joke, it's a total distortion of the facts" and as stating that Hamilton Naki was at the time "in his bed, about 8 km away from Groote Schuur".