Question

(Questions based off of the movie "Something the Lord Made (2004) )

1) Why was cardiac surgery referred to as the "Mount Everest" of medicine before November 1944?

2) How was the Blalock/Thomas team an example of effective teamwork in the healthcare setting?

3) What did Dr. Blalock see in Vivien Thomas a few weeks after he began to work for him?

4) Was the first blue baby operation an experiment as the priest charged?

5) Describe the two reasons why Mr. Thomas operated on the hearts of dogs in Dr. Blalock's research lab when he was preparing for the blue baby operations?

Answer 1

1. Why was cardiac surgery was referred to as "Mount Everest" before November 1944?

Answer: For the heart to function normally there should be effective pumping of blood through the vessels.This provides proper oxygen to the body. For such conditionswhere there is a lack of blood supply, we do not have any surgical treatment till before 1944 and no one proved this. But in 1944 Alfred Blalock, a surgeon from Georgia demonstrated that shock due to inadequate pumping of blood can be treated by transfusion of plasma or whole blood and thus saved many lives.

2. How was Blalock/Thomas team an effective team work in Health Care setting?

  Alfred Blalock and his team along Vivian Thomas is considered to be an effective team work. Their team work had saved many lives during second world war II and also they are the team who worked on Blue Baby Operation and saved the life of a child with Tetrology of Fallot and created a medical history.

3.What did Dr.Blalock see in Vivien Thomas after few weeks he began to work with him?

Blalock noticed that though, Vivien Thomas is very formal in his education he as amazing skills in operation theatre.

4. Was the first Blue Baby Operation an experiment as the priest charged?

Before doing a Blue Baby Operation, Thomas Vivien did experiments on Dogs. He performed this experiment nearly over 200 dogs and saved the life of two Dogs. He was charged against the procedure made on Dog named Anna.

5.Two reasons Thomas operating Dogs before preparing for Blue Baby Operations or Tetrology of Fallot?

1. Dogs heart is same alike as human heart in its structure and parts and so dogs were chosen.

2. An experiment cannot be performed directly on human life and so dogs who have same heart as humans were chosen.