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Year:1944

Who: Vivien Thomas​

Where: John Hopkins, Baltimore, Maryland​

What: Vivien Theodore Thomas, born in 1910 in Lake Providence, Louisiana, overcame systemic racism and financial hardship to revolutionize modern heart surgery. A grandson of slaves, Thomas grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, where he graduated with honors from Pearl High School. His aspirations to attend medical school were derailed by the Great Depression, which wiped out his savings. In 1930, he took a job as a laboratory assistant to Dr. Alfred Blalock at Vanderbilt University, igniting a career that would shape the future of cardiovascular surgery.

Despite having no formal medical training, Thomas mastered complex surgical techniques and research methodologies, quickly becoming indispensable to Blalock. Together, they conducted groundbreaking research on hemorrhagic and traumatic shock, later applied to save lives during World War II. Their work extended into experimental cardiac surgery, defying the taboo of operating on the heart. When Blalock became Chief of Surgery at Johns Hopkins in 1941, Thomas joined him.

At Johns Hopkins, Thomas was instrumental in developing the procedure to treat Tetralogy of Fallot, or "blue baby syndrome," a life-threatening congenital heart defect. Through meticulous experimentation on animal models, Thomas refined the surgical technique known as the Blalock-Taussig shunt. During the first human operation in 1944, he stood on a step-stool guiding Blalock through the procedure. Although the success of the operation earned widespread acclaim, Thomas’s contributions were uncredited in the medical literature, a stark reminder of the racial barriers of the time.

Thomas trained generations of surgeons, including notable figures like Denton Cooley and Levi Watkins Jr., equipping them with the precision needed for heart and lung surgeries. Recognized late in life, he received an honorary doctorate and a faculty position at Johns Hopkins in 1976. His legacy lives on through the Vivien Thomas High School Research Program, inspiring young scientists to pursue innovation and excellence.

Sources:


Journal Articles:

  • Heimbecker, R., Thomas, V., & Blalock, A. (1951). Experimental reversal of capillary blood flow. Circulation, 4(1), 116-119.

  • Kay, J. H., & Thomas, V. (1954). Experimental production of pulmonary insufficiency: Physiological and pathological study. AMA Archives of Surgery, 69(5), 646-650.

  • Soylu, E., Athanasiou, T., & Jarral, O. A. (2017). Vivien Theodore Thomas (1910–1985): An African-American laboratory technician who went on to become an innovator in cardiac surgery. Journal of Medical Biography, 25(2), 106-113.

Websites:

Address

Johns Hopkins University
2800 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218

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