Schrire, Velva
SCHRIRE, VELVA
SCHRIRE, VELVA (1916–1972), South African cardiologist. Schrire was born in Kimberley, South Africa, and after completing his medical studies at the University of Cape Town proceeded to London, where he studied cardiology at the National Heart Hospital. Returning to South Africa, he founded the Cardiac Clinic at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town in 1951, and under his leadership the clinic achieved an international reputation, with Schrire playing a decisive part as a member of the team under Dr. Christiaan Barnard which performed the first heart transplant in history. In 1964 he was appointed associate professor of medicine at his university, and was promoted to full professor a few weeks before his death. Together with Barnard he published The Surgery of Common Congenital Cardiac Malformations (1966) and, in the same year, Clinical Cardiology.