Thread: Gods

Dear Colleagues, as some of you may know I work as a cardiac anaesthetist and this post is due to my attending to the Lukasz Palkowski movie - GODS. The whole story is about the father of Polish cardiac transplant medicine, prof Zbigniew Religa who I had a chance to meet few times but has been working with his disciples for the last 20 years, cardiac surgeons and my fellows anaesthetists, giving anaesthesia to his patients. I have had constant chats with many of them and this intriguing story of the cardiac surgeon driven by a passion, paying with his life to rescue people and suffering from cigarettes smoking, drunk many times and bad tempered however giving himself totally to the idea is a fascinating thing and I am pretty sure you will not be disappointed.

Perhaps many of you may not be aware of the fact that only two years after the first heart transplant by prof. Barnard our Polish surgeon Jan Moll took a chance to do the same thing in 1969. The movie concentrates on the difficult times when Mr Religa started his plan to create a new department of cardiac surgery in the south of Poland, in Silesian city Zabrze to make heart transplants a routine procedure in Polish medicine. He fought for the money and acknowledgment in hard communist times, when there was no money, nor common knowledge of this new type of operation.

Tomasz Kot, actor playing Religa in the movie, did an excellent job but not only him, the rest of the staff, music and way the story is told prevent you definitely from eating your popcorn, take my word !

GODS by Lukasz Palkowski opens the 26th PFFA | Polish Film Festival in America

Sounds interesting, am a retired Clincal perfusionist with 43 yrs of experiance.I met Barnard in 1965 working as a lab tech at Stanford Under Dr, N Shumway,Barnard copied every technique shumway developed.
He was able to perform the first plant in africa because a definition of brain dead made no differance in that country.
We were ready to do the first plant in the world long before Barnard but our county Coroner and Hospital attorneys would not allow it.
I Helped run the pump on Stanfords first plant and many more after that,IMO is actually very simple, boring surgury.

Yes, you may be right about the surgery, we know much more interesting and technically demanding operations, however this movie is about a man driven by his passion, and a bit of Eastern Europe image in the iron curtain times... give it a try

Originally Posted by machez

Yes, you may be right about the surgery, we know much more interesting and technically demanding operations, however this movie is about a man driven by his passion, and a bit of Eastern Europe image in the iron curtain times... give it a try

Yep, like full thoracic arch replacements and complex pedi cases that take 20 hrs I miss the drama but am glad to be out of it.
Thx for the link, will look for the vid.

Originally Posted by machez

suffering from cigarettes smoking, drunk many times and bad tempered

A perfect description of me and no one is making a movie yet ........

Kidding aside, thanks for the post. I'm sure it will be a movie many of us will want to see, Polish, or no matter what our ancestry.

Truth is, most heavy drinkers are protected from heart attacks and coronary problems,look up the french Paradox.
But they also have other issues that will kill them just as dead.

The French drink a lot of wine and their livers not necessarily would benefit from it, what I can say is that because of common addictions I haven't become unemployed and could afford new razors.. still recomend you to refrain

Originally Posted by machez

The French drink a lot of wine and their livers not necessarily would benefit from it, what I can say is that because of common addictions I haven't become unemployed and could afford new razors.. still recomend you to refrain

Agreed,Have you read the King of hearts by Wayne Miller,is an older book about Dr.C. walton Lillihei who is considered the father of American Cardiac Surg.Is a great read about the dawn of Cardiac in the U.S,The development of the first Pacemakers by one of his techs using an artical from popular Mechanics Magizine after reading about the first Transistors (he went on to form the medtronics company).
Crude cross perfusion proceedures between Mother and child.Mortality was High,but it is how we learned.

Of cause Mr. Lillehei is famous and acknowledged surgeon but I haven't come across this book, I will need to give it a try - just have to find it... That is such a fascinating history of medicine, I know that perhaps you are quite happy to be retired now since those were really hard times, but still there's a bit of some regret in me that I wasn't able to work with the giants of cardiac surgery... on the other side I have to confess that probably it will be a good thing to stop being on call after so many years, people outside this field may not be aware how hard and procrustrating is the hospital life.. I am not complaining, that was my choice, but one day you start to realize how's your life quickly running ! You know that feeling, I'm sure...

Originally Posted by machez

Of cause Mr. Lillehei is famous and acknowledged surgeon but I haven't come across this book, I will need to give it a try - just have to find it... That is such a fascinating history of medicine, I know that perhaps you are quite happy to be retired now since those were really hard times, but still there's a bit of some regret in me that I wasn't able to work with the giants of cardiac surgery... on the other side I have to confess that probably it will be a good thing to stop being on call after so many years, people outside this field may not be aware how hard and procrustrating is the hospital life.. I am not complaining, that was my choice, but one day you start to realize how's your life quickly running ! You know that feeling, I'm sure...

You can find the book online.
Funny you mention being on call,I was a private contractor on call for over 40 yrs,pagers, sat phones, Cell phones, I had them all.
I have ruined many Holiday dinners by being called to work.Go out to dinner with family, have to take two cars.one for them, one for me If I have to go to work,being on call makes you crazy,(my wife,a retired Cardiac nurse) asks me why I am so anal about making sure I have a phone on my bedstand,Nobody has called you in 3 yrs to do a case,get over it,I cannot,it was my entire life