Interesting Movie

Just finished watching Something the Lord Made which is about the surgeon, Dr. Blaylock, and his assistant, Vivien Peters, who performed the first open heart surgeries. Since the assistant was a black man and had started working for the surgeon as a custodian between the two world wars as a way to pay for medical school, which as far as I can tell he never got to, there was an interesting theme about the evolving ways they viewed each other over their thirty or so year working relationship.

My main thought on the movie is that it's a good thing they were researching and proving the benefits of their work before the era of the regulatory alphabet and risk management because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be allowed now. Even if the government did allow it, and since the first surgeries were on children it seem unlikely, not many places would be willing to assume the risk of being sued.

An interesting bit of trivia I had read recently in a Dick Francis novel was that British surgeons were referred to as "Mr." not "Dr." I wondered at the time if that were the case with American surgeons as well. Although, come to think about, it my sister always refers to her surgeons as "Dr.____" and the ENT who did beloveds cancer surgery is "Dr. Smith" so I guess it should have been obvious. Anyway, the surgeon in the movie made a big deal out of being called "Dr." not "sir" so I guess it must just be a British thing to be called "Mr."

The movie was "based on true events" which can mean a lot of different things as to how factual a given movie is. I found it very enjoyable and certainly a good starting point for learning more about the actual historical facts.