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Deirdre Murphy presents everything that can go wrong in cardiac surgery. Deirdre will impress on you that cardiac surgery is by no means a safe procedure! Murphy’s Law stipulates everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Subsequently, Finagle’s corollary will tell us, it will be at the worst possible moment. In this talk Deirdre attempts to prove these theories in the world of cardiac surgery. Cardiac surgery can vary from being routine elective surgery to time-critical emergency surgery. The term encompasses a broad range of procedures carried out on patients from neonates to nonagenarians. In the 63 years since the first open heart surgery was performed using cardiopulmonary bypass enormous advances have been made in the field such that an average person presenting for coronary bypass grafting in 2016 can expect a very low chance of peri-operative morbidity or mortality. When things go wrong however, they can go badly wrong and at the worst possible moment. The list of problems that occur is extensive. D