Open Hearts

Nearly all of us will, at some point, know someone who was born with a congenital heart defect - but, as the surgical scars so often remain hidden, we just might not realise it.; Until the 1950s blue babies were a common sight in our streets. Suffering from congenital heart disease offered a bleak outlook to young patients and a heartbreaking experience for parents. Now, in the West at least, most of these children will have a much higher chance of survival.; In Open Hearts Kate Bull tells not just of the development of heart surgery in children but also of the miraculous difference it has made to so many around the world whose futures have been transformed. Besides the technology, the sociology of medicine has changed substantially since the 1950s - think of the atmosphere of children's wards. Other things have barely changed - consider the dread of kissing your child goodbye at the door of a cardiac operating theatre in any era.; Many of the first patients are now fully grown and have children - even grandchildren - of their own; while a whole new generation of children's lives are being transformed in hospitals every day. By turns frightening, heart-wrenching and inspiring, Open Hearts is a powerful story of medical progress, hope and survival.