Transplant Patient Sees Own heart on display in museum

A woman has visited her own heart at a museum 16 years after it was removed during life-saving transplant surgery.Jennifer Sutton, from Ringwood in Hampshire, said it was “incredibly surreal” to see the organ as an exhibit at London’s Hunterian Museum. The 38-year-old said she hoped it would help promote organ donation, describing it as “the greatest gift possible”.Ms Sutton was a university student when she realised she was struggling with moderate exercise like walking up hills.She was quickly diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy – a condition that restricts the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body – and was told she would die without receiving a transplant.The then-22-year-old’s health deteriorated rapidly while she was on the transplant waiting list, but she received the news in June 2007 that a match had been found.She gave permission to the Royal College of Surgeons to use her heart for a display and it is now open for all to see at the museum in Holborn.