Something the Lord Made

I bought this for my grandparents for Christmas and they said it was one of the best movies they have ever seen. They were telling people about it, and when they do that then I KNOW it is good!

As a writer and editor in health care, I am always curious to learn about the workings, indeed, the miracles, that happen everyday in hospital operating rooms. "Something the Lord Made" is based on the true events that led to cardiac surgery as we know it today.

But there are two great stories here. One story is the fascinating process of discovery in medicine born of the partnership between the brilliant Dr. Alfred Blalock (played by Alan Rickman) and his no less brilliant laboratory technician, Vivien Thomas (played by Mos Def). The other story, no less fascinating, is of a white man and a black man in a partnership to bring oxygen to the heart ... metaphorically speaking. Their partnership takes place in the time when civil rights were still just a twinkle in Martin Luther King's eye, in the 1930's and 40's. Blalock is a risk-taking surgeon who runs a laboratory where he conducts his research, and he hires an African-American janitor with an interest in medicine. He promotes him to lab technician, but where there are moments when Blalock rises above bigotry and does what is right, there are also those moments when he conforms to the racism of the day. When he achieves success in developing the technique for a bypass on a "blue baby," he publicly expresses his gratitude to every white man in the operating room, yet leaves Vivien Thomas unacknowledged. Blalock is in great measure a hero, defying the day, but not without his moments of failing the quiet man working beside him, bringing life to his heart in more ways than one. Much of the movie's intrigue is the movement of the two men toward and away from each other, in and apart from medicine.

It is disappointing that this movie has not received greater acclaim. First shown as an HBO movie, it deserves the bigger screen. It shines an important light on innovation, the risk and determination needed to realize a great discovery, the taking of a higher road when the lower road would seem so much easier. We see a man rise above when he is forced to take the back entrance to John Hopkins, live on the pay of a janitor while perfecting operating techniques he can literally perform with his eyes closed, perform under surgical lights in a hospital where black men cannot be called on a PA system... because they are black. We see here a man do the work he loves, in spite of the lack of recognition, in spite of being ignored again and again, year upon year, brushed aside without credit. This is the greatness that happens when, and only when, a passion is followed through first and foremost because the work is worthy - not the applause.

It is only when great work is done without considering applause, after all, that it deserves it. The ending, so long in coming, is deeply satisfying. It brings new oxygen to all human hearts.

This moving was very inspiring. We shared it with our children for Black History Month, it was an attention getter! Mind stimulating!

This is a well acted dramatization of the experience of Viviene Thomas, Alfred Blalock (to a much smaller extent) Helen Taussig who created the Blalock-Taussig shunt which prompted much of the field of open heart surgery. The procedure they developed was for babies with congenital heart defects (CHD), but it ushered in an era of heart surgery that ended up pioneering treatment surgeries for - CHD's now more well-know cousin - acquired heart disease. This was the first step for heart surgery as it was the first step for many of these kids in their treatment of CHD.

If you want the real story and not a fictionalized version, I highly recommend Partner's of the Heart. (I like it just a bit better.) American Experience - Partners Of The Heart

If you're interested in another compelling story of one of the first surgeons who operated on the INSIDE of the heart, the book King of Hearts is exceptional. King of Hearts: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart SurgeryAmerican Experience - Partners Of The Heart

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I caught this movie by mistake while I was attending a medical training class. I turned on the TV for background noise so I can study and the story gripped me so much that when I returned home from my training immediately searched the internet for the movie and found it here on Amazon. Now I show it anytime I have friends over who haven't seen it and no one has had a negative thing to say about it, nor is there a dry eye in the house. Compelling stuff...