Vivien Thomas
American laboratory supervisor (1910–1985) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Dr. Vivien Theodore Thomas (August 29, 1910[1] – November 26, 1985)[2] was an American laboratory supervisor who in the 1940s developed a procedure used to treat blue baby syndrome (now known as cyanotic heart disease).[3] He was the assistant to surgeon Alfred Blalock in Blalock's experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and later at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Thomas was unique in that he did not have any professional education or experience in a research laboratory; however, he served as supervisor of the surgical laboratories at Johns Hopkins for 35 years. In 1976, Johns Hopkins awarded him an honorary doctorate and named him an Instructor of Surgery for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.[3] Without any education past high school, Thomas rose above poverty and racism to become a cardiac surgery pioneer and a teacher of operative techniques to many of the country's most prominent surgeons.
Dr. Vivien Thomas | |
---|---|
Born | Vivien Theodore Thomas August 29, 1910 |
Died | November 26, 1985(1985-11-26) (aged 75) |
Education | Pearl High School |
Years active | 1930 - 1979 |
Medical career | |
Profession | Instructor of Surgery |
Institutions | Johns Hopkins Hospital, Vanderbilt University Hospital |
Research | Blue baby syndrome, Atrial septostomy |
A PBS documentary, Partners of the Heart,[4] was broadcast in 2003 on PBS's American Experience. In the 2004 HBO movie Something the Lord Made, based on Katie McCabe's National Magazine Award–winning Washingtonian article of the same title, Vivien Thomas was portrayed by Mos Def.