The first heart transplant was completed by a desperate doctor who stole the heart out of Black man and transplanted it into a white man. The Black man was initially taken into the hospital with a head injury. Authorities did not really attempt to find his relatives, and instead made the decision to take his life so the doctor could have the heart. This book is full of great research - I found it all to be incredibly interesting. The book exposes the medical racism in our country. Another great book that does this is about Henrietta Lacks.

A fascinating glimpse into the history of medicine. I have to say that some of the things people have done to other people in the name of science are just insane. Not for the faint of heart. Four stars.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. I was hooked from the first page. While the story itself is disturbing, it's one that needs to be told. What I found to be one of the best things about "The Organ Thieves" was that, while it's a book about history, it doesn't read like a history textbook. The author, Chip Jones, has done an excellent job.

Tried reading this one and it just was not meant for me. This does not mean that it is not a good book, I just was not in the right place to be reading it and have decided to not try picking it up anytime in the near future.

The was eye opening g, heartbreaking, a
D lovely at the same time. The was the another describes such horrendous chromes was truly touching. I would imagine trusting a doctor to fix my head, but then murder me for my heart. This is a must read for anyone who is human.

This book was such an interesting read, but it was such a horrific and tragic event. To imagine that as a society we had the hubris to think that when a heart was needed, it could just be taken from someone that the doctors considered expendable is tough to swallow. The man this book was written about was taken to the hospital after a fall and a head injury, and when his family was preparing for his funeral they were told he was missing organs. They had no idea why, if he had a head injury, he was missing his heart. To think that the circumstances of his death were shady is a tragic commentary on the race conditions in our country. Was he actually brain dead, as the doctors claim? Or was he left to die alone, so that his organs could be used for a white man?

This was interesting, but a bit rambly at times. I think I know more about heart transplants than I ever thought I would at this point.
The Tucker family got such a raw deal here and I'm unsurprised the son refused to speak to the author - they got nothing, not even an apology, for what was clearly negligence, statute of limitations be damned.

In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black man, went into Virginia's top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a white businessman.

In The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge. The circumstances surrounding his death reflect the long legacy of mistreating African Americans that began more than a century before with slavery, cadaver harvesting, and worse, and culminated in efforts to win the heart transplant race in the late 1960s.

This book was actually much more comprehensive than I thought it would be. Rather than just telling Tucker’s story, it gives quite a thorough history of the study of human anatomy (beginning with grave-robbing) and the race towards organ transplantation in the US, focusing on the medical school/research hospital in the city of Richmond, Virginia, where one day in 1968 Tucker falls off a fence, hits his head, and is handed back to his family minus his heart and kidneys.

The dark undercurrent of the entire book is that much of our modern-day medical progress was made by taking advantage of our most vulnerable citizens, minorities and poor people. It’s pretty long and dense, but an important read.

I usually enjoy true historical stories, but I just couldn't get into The Organ Thieves. It's not a bad story, so I would still give it a try, if your interested. I, sadly, was not able to finish it.

This book was tough but enlightening. Wow. It is shocking to read an historical account of some of the awful things that humans have done to each other. In this case, it is in the name of medical science and racial inequality. This is an excellent account of real world events that took place in the American South. Let's pray that we move forward from tragic events such as these.
Difficult read but highly recommend for anyone interested in race or science history.
#TheOrganThieves #Netgalley #GalleryBooks #GalleryJeterPublishing

Organ transplant science is something that can feel like it’s been around forever, but in fact it’s really still a fairly new form of treatment. The first transplant of any organ was in 1954, and the first heart transplant was in 1967. The Civil Rights Act was in 1964, so at the time this treatment was emerging, segregated health care was still present in the US.

This book first gives context to the inequities seen in organ donation and reception by looking at the topic of where student doctors get cadavers to practice dissection upon. Although currently there is a system in place for the ethical donation of remains for educational use, at the time there was no such system in place. Medical schools turned to grave-robbing – and they preferentially robbed from Black graveyards. Black families called these “night doctors.”

"Parents even used the specter of “night doctors” to make their children stay in bed. “You’d better go to sleep,” they’d say, “or the student doctors will get you.”"
(loc 3353)

This was also a time period where there was some debate about what counts as death. Legally, until 1968, death was the full cessation of the working of all organs. In 1968, with advancing science, the theory of brain death was proposed. This was partially due to new health care technology that allowed for a machine to keep the organs operating. In tandem, the science of organ transplantation was emerging. The fresher the organ, the better the chances for the transplant to succeed. With the emerging theory of brain death meaning organs were operating but the patient might be able to be considered dead, and I’m sure you can see where this was going.

Bruce Tucker was a blue collar worker. He was hanging out with friends having a few drinks of alcohol on a stone wall. He fell and suffered head trauma. He was brought to the hospital alone. In spite of having his brother’s business card in his pocket, no one called his brother. Police officers were sent to his home to try to find family, but he didn’t live with his brother. At the same time, a white businessman was waiting for a heart transplant at the same hospital.

"The early conversations among the surgeons had little to do about his chances for survival but rather concerned using him for another purpose. No one was discussing whether he might recover and be rehabilitated….Men like Tucker, arriving with alcohol on their breath and seemingly no one to claim them were often written off as ‘charity patients.’ They weren’t expected to pay their bills, with the hospital absorbing any expenses."
loc 2064

Jones notes that Tucker thus suffered from what can be termed a social death. Arriving at the hospital with alcohol on his breath meant that he was looked down upon by society, on top of how he was already perceived as a Black man in a Segregated southern hospital. Add to that the fact that the hospital decided he seemed to have no loved ones, and he was viewed as disposable.

Tucker did have loved ones, though, and when his body was sent to the funeral home, the caretaker notified his family that he arrived without a heart. This is when Tucker’s brother started to pursue answers and justice.

The next part of the book deals with the lawsuit that came about and how the court case was ruled. I wasn’t surprised, but was still severely disappointed to see how the hospital and doctors got away with it, and the Tucker family was left without justice. Notably to me is the quote from the prosecuting lawyer,

"It doesn’t change the fact that when they took his heart from him he was not dead according to the law. So they broke the law and never would admit it, and that’s what bothered me more than anything else."
(loc 4397)

A clarifying note that the defense team used the argument of brain death, which was not the law at the time. The defense team also organized for as many transplant experts as possible to be in town at the time of the trial. They arranged for a transplant conference that just so happened to coincide with the scheduled trial. The conference was sponsored by Pfizer. The book notes just how much sway having transplant experts on the stand had on the judgment.

What stood out to me in reading this book is how societal inequalities and judgements can and do severely impact the quality of care that a patient might receive. I also was surprised to learn how recently brain death became the standard, and to read about the arguments on both sides of that debate. Brain death is not as clear-cut as I once thought it was.

The author does a good job of making history personal by focusing on Bruce Tucker and his family but also fleshing out with enough surrounding historical details that the complex situation made sense to read about. I do think his epilogue was unnecessary, where he details trying to speak with Bruce Tucker’s son, who did not want to speak to him. I feel that truly leaving Bruce Tucker’s son alone would have entailed simply a note that he did not wish to be interviewed and leaving it at that.

Overall, this is a fascinating and sad read about the history of organ transplants and brain death in the US. Recommended if these topics interest you.

Excellent story. Good history of heart transplants and of the first in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This first transplant created a real storm of confusion. The physicians did not receive permission from the next of kin for a variety of reasons. Additionally, the donor was Black and the recipient was white. This brought up the question of whether a true effort had been made to get permission from the next of kin, because the white life was perceived to be more valuable than the Black life. It was an interesting story. The writing could have benefitted from more editing, as much information was repeated in different parts of the book. Overall, I liked this book and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in organ transplants and the perception of Blacks in the 1960's in Virginia.

I really loved this book! It is written in an easy to read and understand way. It’s an interesting topic, and while the book focused on one event, I liked how it touched the history around it. I expected to like the book, but ended up loving it.

This riveting book takes a look at several slices of Virginia history, including the birth and early practices of Medical College of Virginia, the tragic story of Bruce Walker, the early years of organ transplantation, and the lasting effects of segregation and racial tension within a community. Jones compiles facts, records, and recollections in an effort to honor the life of Bruce Walker and to remind us why history should not be covered over and forgotten.

This story, of a Black man's being poorly treated by an Emergency Department and then used as a source for a donor heart by a Virginia hospital is shocking but at the same time not so surprising.

Much like books such as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Small Great Things this book displays how terrible people have been treated (and still are) in this great country. I enjoyed this book but I like history and medical ethics drama and this book has both..

I enjoyed reading this one! I think it was beautifully written in certain parts and tells a tragic but necessary history. I think some of the events that happened afterwards could have been edited out or not gone on as long as it did about them and it would have made the book more streamline and to the point, but in the end it didn't take away from the book.

This is a very interesting and important book about the first heart transplant in VA and the involuntary donor of that heart, Bruce Tucker. Jones has done an admirable job of researching this book; however, the ending leaves a bad taste. Jones describes how he hunted down Mr. Tucker's son in the hopes of an interview. Abraham Tucker let the author know he wasn't interested and never would be, yet Jones still includes this as the ending of his book. To Me, this feels like a footnote in the same vein as the "social death" Jones rhapsodizes about in his account of Mr. Tucker's death. It feels wrong to me.

The description of this book makes it sound so interesting, but it's really not. I want more about the 1968 theft of Bruce Tucker's organs and less context of the past. It just really makes it a long slow read

Chip Jones has an important story to tell in The Organ Thieves, and he's obviously researched thoroughly to put that story in context. His account includes background on a vast number of related topics, including the history of anatomists, first in art and then in medicine; the history of the Medical College of Virginia and its push to compete with larger and better known medical schools in the country; research and experiments across the country and the world that discovered techniques to enable organ transplants; and of course, the incident itself and the trial that followed. At times, this effort to put the story of Bruce Tucker's death in context seemed to meander too far afield, but in the end, all the background was interesting and worthwhile. Jones highlights the bias against and disregard for the rights of the poor, and especially of poor Blacks in Virginia, which resulted in the cavalier decision to take Tucker's heart with neither permission nor even notification (before or after the fact) of his family. It's a sad reminder of the cruelty of our past, and of just how far we still need to go to create the social equality this country claims to promote.