In 1944, two men at Johns Hopkins University Hospital pioneered a groundbreaking procedure that would save thousands of so-called blue babies' lives. One of them, Alfred Blalock, was a prominent white surgeon. The other, Vivien Thomas, was an African American with a high school education. Partners of the Heart tells the inspiring, little-known story of their collaboration.

Open-heart surgery is now almost routine, yet just a few decades ago the idea of operating on a living human heart was unthinkable. Thanks to the efforts of a talented few who refused to believe it couldn't be done, open-heart surgery became a reality in the 1950s. Chief among its pioneers was the Minnesota surgeon Dr. C. Walton Lillehei whose story is told here in thriller style. Read by Patrick Cullen.

"I almost died making this film," jokes filmmaker Marc Ostrick, and it's literally true. Marc was born with a serious congenital heart defect and, at the age of twenty-seven, he is about to face his third open-heart surgery. Not only does he have to come to terms with his own mortality, but he also has to deal with anxious divorced parents who haven't seen each other in years and a best friend who has his own ideas about how to help. This is a wry, first-person expedition into the uncertain territories of high-risk medicine and high intensity family relations.

Actors Alan Rickman and Mos Def take on the true story of Dr. Alfred Blalock (1899-1964), a surgeon (therefore, self-confident to the point of arrogance), and his lab technician, Vivien Thomas (1910-1985), a black man without a college degree, but a gifted mechanic and tool-maker with hands splendidly adept at surgery.