Heart and Home

At its core, Transplant is a book about humility. The title references both Arvind Koshal’s work in heart transplant surgery at the very birth of this specialty in Canada and his somewhat unanticipated immigration from India. When Koshal travelled from Raipur to Ontario in 1975, to enter a residency program in general surgery at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, he fully intended to go back, eventually, to work as a surgeon. But then his commitment to his surgical training and his skill caught the attention of the chief of cardiac surgery, Wilbert Keon.

Keon had recently founded the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, where, a year after he arrived, Koshal became the first trainee in cardiac surgery. He went on to become a staff surgeon at UOHI, when his new field was still in its infancy. In 1991, Koshal became the chief of cardiac surgery at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton. Throughout his career, Koshal has valued the fact that patients in...