In collaboration with the VCU Common Book program, VCU Libraries presents The Organ Thieves Film Series.  These discussions are meant to echo the themes of the Fall 2022 Common Book, The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South, and help students explore medical ethics, racial equity and how we discuss these controversial topics in modern society. Popcorn and drinks will be provided at each event. The screenings are free and open to all. 

September 14
James Branch Cabell Library Room 250
4 p.m. 

“Transplanting Hope,” a film from the PBS series NOVA tells the story of modern American transplant patients. Every 10 minutes, a person in the U.S. is added to the waiting list for an organ transplant, joining more than 100,000 others. A dire shortage of organs means every opportunity for a transplant has to count. With extraordinary access to patients and transplant teams, NOVA takes the viewer inside the operating room to witness the emotional, high-stakes process of transferring organs from donors to recipients. The film and the discussion that follow will be hosted by Focused Inquiry professor Carver Weakley and Public Affairs Research Librarian Nia Rodgers  

September 15 
Larrick Student Center Courtend Ballroom 
5:30 p.m.

The 2008 film “Hidden Heart: The Story of the First Human Heart Transplant, Hamilton Naki and Christiaan Barnard” details the  history of the first human heart transplant (1967). The surgery was performed in Apartheid segregated South Africa. The film provides an intimate look at the lives of White South African Surgeon Christiaan Barnard and his Black South African assistant Hamilton Naki. The film screening will be followed by facilitated discussion with Professor and Chair of the Division of Transplantation Surgery, and Director of VCU Hume-Lee Transplant Center, Marlon Levy, M.D.   

October 19
James Branch Cabell Library Room 250
4 p.m.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein stars Kenneth Branaugh, Helena Bonham Carter, and Robert De Niro. This 1994 version tells the well-known story of Victor Frankenstein, a promising young doctor who, devastated by the death of his mother during childbirth, becomes obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. His experiments lead to the creation of a creature that Frankenstein has put together from the remains of corpses. The film and the discussion that follow will be hosted by Focused Inquiry professor Carver Weakley and Public Affairs Research Librarian Nia Rodgers   

November 9
James Branch Cabell Library Room 250
4 p.m.

The documentary Something the Lord Made tells the emotional true story of two men who defied the rules of their time to launch a medical revolution, set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow south. Working in 1940s Baltimore on an unprecedented technique for performing heart surgery on "blue babies," Dr. Alfred Blalock and lab technician Vivien Thomas form an impressive team. As Blalock and Thomas invent a new field of medicine, saving thousands of lives in the process, social pressures threaten to undermine their collaboration and tear them apart. The film and the discussion that follow will be hosted by Focused Inquiry professor Carver Weakley and Public Affairs Research Librarian Nia Rodgers.