Organ Transplant: A Matter of Life and Death | 2

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

By the early 1960s, surgeons have proven that it's possible to transplant kidneys and lungs. Now, with heart disease still the leading cause of death, they've set their sights on performing the first human heart transplant. But first, they've got to overcome the ethical, legal, and surgical challenges of removing a donor's heart before it stops beating for good.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American innovations, add free on Amazon music, download
0:06.0	the app today.
0:15.0	It's December 23, 1959.
0:18.4	Five years to the day, since Dr. Joseph Murray made history by performing the first successful
0:24.4	human kidney transplant.
0:26.6	Since then, little progress has been made on transplanting other organs, but that's
0:31.0	about to change.
0:33.2	Good boy.
0:34.7	At the Stanford Hospital Center in Palo Alto, California, a 36-year-old surgeon named
0:39.9	Norm Shumway and Jex and anesthetic into a 40-pound dog, one of several kept here in the
0:45.5	hospital's research lab.
0:47.9	Shumway strokes the dog's head as it slips into unconsciousness.
0:51.6	Then he turns to his surgical partner, 30-year-old Dick Lauer, who stands over another anesthetized
0:57.5	dog on an adjacent operating table.
1:00.4	You ready, Dick?
1:02.2	Ready.
1:03.2	For the past year, Shumway and Lauer have been coming to this lab to perform heart surgery
1:07.9	experiments.
1:08.9	They do this in their spare time before going off to their night shift jobs.
1:13.1	Lauer, as a surgical assistant, Shumway is the operator of the hospital's kidney dialysis
1:17.9	machine.
1:19.1	These jobs bore them, but cardiac surgery?
	...

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