Dr. Ashish Shah is the Alfred Blalock Endowed Director and Chair, Department of Cardiac Surgery, and director of Heart Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support at Vanderbilt. He is the driving force behind the nation's busiest heart transplant center. Vanderbilt does more heart transplants than any hospital in the world.

February is American Heart Month, and in today's conversation, Dr. Shah and I do a deep dive on heart health and the latest in transplantation – the miraculous, life-giving procedure that is rapidly evolving with today's cutting-edge science. We cover pig hearts, novel "heart in a box" technology, and medical progress that once sounded like science-fiction.

Additional Resources: Below are the videos cited in today's show re: Vivien Thomas:

American Experience "Partners of the Heart" (TV Episode 2002) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328241/

"Something the Lord Made," HBO Movie, 2007 - https://amzn.to/3uJngIE

Vivien Thomas, "Partners of the Heart: Vivien Thomas and His Work with Alfred Blalock: An Autobiography," 1998 - https://amzn.to/3rMSQn5

Gwendolyn Hooks & Colin Bootman, "Tiny Stitches: The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas," Children's book, 2016 - https://amzn.to/3LvUDof

165 - Dr. Ashish Shah, Director of the World's Busiest Heart Transplant Program Shares the Future of Transplantation