Open Hearts

About Professor Joseph Borman

From his childhood in South Africa to his education and marriage in England and his eventual career in Israel, renowned cardiac surgeon Professor Joseph Borman narrates the highlights of his highly accomplished life and career with wit and humanity. Borman's many contributions to Israeli medicine and society include the emergency surgery he performed on the critically injured soldier Doron Lancet during the 1967 Six-Day War, which saved the life of the man who would go on to become the leader of the Israeli team that helped map the human genome. Always focused on ethics above all, Borman relates dilemmas such as the choice of an Arab recipient for a heart donated by the family of a reserve officer in the Israel Defense Forces killed by an Arab terrorist. Professor Borman also recounts the interesting stories of some of his patients and describes the roots trip he and his wife have taken with their children to the ancestral Eastern European towns where their parents were born and lived.