Just over a month since he died, the New York Times has a good retrospective on the 60 days that James Quinn spent with the AbioCor artificial heart in his chest. The article does a good job of demonstrating the level of detail that goes into planning trials of devices like artificial hearts, from the patients (must be within a month of expected death, must have a chest big enough to hold the device) to the family (must be able to handle the constraints, must be able to deal with the uncertainty) to the home (must have stable electrical power, must have furniture!). With the shortage of organ donors in the United States, and the loss of countless organs due to the lack of presumed consent, the development of reliable artificial organs is becoming more and more important, as is understanding what that development entails.