In 1950, the first kidney transplant operation was undertaken at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Richard H. Lawler performed the operation in about an hour on Ruth Tucker, age 44. He decided upon the surgery because of her medical need. A kidney became available from another patient that had just died of cirrhosis of the liver. The transplanted kidney worked for at least 53 days. But at ten months, it was found to be shrunken, discolored and rejected. It was removed. Tucker died five years after the transplant of an unrelated coronary occlusion. Lawler had no further interest in becoming a transplant surgeon. It was four years before there was another successful result elsewhere.«