The Reverend Barnard did not agree with the idea of separating the races or different laws for African people. Young Christiaan Barnard learned tolerance. He also learned about the natural world during long, instructive walks with his father.
His mother, Maria, was the church organist. She taught Barnard about ambition and winning. She also taught him about humility. He remembers her saying:
When the plum tree is full of ripe fruit, its branches hang low to the ground.
He was one of five sons. One brother died at an early age of a heart condition. Barnard enjoyed animals and sports. He was a good student, and graduated from Beaufort West High School in 1940. He obtained a three-year scholarship to study at the University of Cape Town. He stayed with his older brother, an engineering student, and reportedly walked five miles one way to the university campus.
Barnard adjusted to university life, including learning English (his family spoke the native Afrikaans language). He graduated in 1946 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery and went on to do an internship and residency at Groote Schuur Hospital and Peninsula Maternity.
He and a colleague started a medical practice in Ceres. Barnard was deeply moved when he lost an infant patient with a heart defect. His interest in heart surgery grew. The practice experienced financial problems, and he returned to Cape Town in 1951 to continue work on a doctorate degree in Medicine. In 1953 he received a Master of Medicine and Doctor of Medicine. He was promoted to Registrar (resident) in the Department of Surgery.
He was awarded a Charles Adams Memorial Scholarship and a Dazian Foundation Bursary that allowed him two years to work and study in Minneapolis, at the University of Minnesota, with Dr. Owen H. Wagensteen. Barnard studied general surgery. He was asked to join a team where he learned about the newly developed heart-lung machine, which included a pump to replace the heart function and an oxygenator to replace the lung function. While in the U.S. he received a Master of Science in Surgery in 1958.
Barnard returned to South Africa in 1958 with new knowledge, more experience and a heart-lung machine, a gift from Wagensteen and the U.S. government. He went to work at the Groote Schuur Hospital in their first heart unit as a specialist in cardiothoracic surgery. He was the Director of Surgical Research at the University of Cape Town. In 1961, he became Head of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. In 1962, he became an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery.
