On September 13, 2002, mankind reached another technological milestone. Tom Christerson, a patient in Kentucky completed his first year of life sustained by a self-contained artificial heart. The heart, considered the body's engine, keeps all the other organs working by supplying them with blood and nutrients. All of the body's organs require blood to function. This means that a product of advanced technology, the plastic and titanium Abiocor heart, is now performing one of the most vital functions of a living human being.

The Abiocor heart is the result of decades of research. 1The first artificial heart dates back to the mid-fifties when a team of scientist's led by Willem Kolff, a Dutch-born physician, tested their model in animals. In 1969, a team led by Denton Cooley of the Texas Heart Institute successfully kept the first human patient alive for more than sixty hours with their model. Then, in 1982, a team led by William DeVries of the University of Utah, implanted the Jarvik-7 artificial heart into a patient named Barney Clark, who lived for 112 days.

2The Jarvik-7 was an air-driven pump that required Clark be bound to a compressor the size of a wa

I agree with Dr. Laman Gray. Success is when you have helped somebody. My family and I remember Barney Clark and the Jarvil-7 artificial heart very well. In 1982, we rooted for Barney Clark in a hospital in Charlottesville Virginia. My father was in that hospital dying of heart disease. Both he and Barney Clark died, however, the Abiocor artificial heart gives us hope that in the future thanks to this technology, many will live.

On July 2, 2001 a team led by Dr. Robert Dowling of the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, implanted the Abiocor heart into Robert Tools, the first of seven implant patients. All but Tom Christerson died. But, prior to his surgery, he was so weak that taking even a few steps made him breathless. He was given only days to live and now he has survived for over a year, walks unassisted and is the first artificial heart patient to go home.

This is an event that deserves to be celebrated but the magnitude of this achievement has been overshadowed amid recent ethical debates. In a July 4, 2001, CNN interview, CNN Medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen discussed the ethics behind giving a patient an artificial heart. 5She said "The major ethical question for the doctors at this stage is: Are scientists using patient's as guinea pigs? In other words, can the patient expect something more than just lif

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