Hearts exposed : transplants and the media in 1960s Britain / Ayesha Nathoo.

Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

xv, 262 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Making the heart transplantable. The 'pump' : its disciplines, institutions and professionals ; 'Spare-part surgery' and human heart transplants ; Preparing doctors and the public -- Communicating medicine in post-war Britain. Doctors and the control of medical communication ; Making medical news and the challenge of television ; Medical accountability -- Creating the most famous operation in the world. Breaking news ; Louis Washkansky : the world's most famous patient ; Christiaan Barnard : South Africa's 'most valued ambassador' -- 'The most extraordinary programme ever shown on television' : a new medium for debating medicine. Negotiating arenas and methods of medical debate ; Tomorrow's world in the making : shaping medical debate ; Response to the 'medical circus' -- Hospital-media relations in the first British heart transplant. Staging a press conference to manage a media event ; Continuing the story : using the press or being used? ; Divided communities -- Managing medicine's image in the 'time of the heart transplants'. Public accountability -- 'Brain death' and access to medical decision-making ; Donor supply and trust in the medical profession ; A moratorium on heart transplants.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-254) and index.