Vivien Thomas – Grandson of a Slave is Finally Called Doctor
By
John C Abercrombie
Vivien Theodore Thomas was the grandson of a slave and developed the desire to become a medical doctor at an early age. Although his dream of attending medical school was derailed, he became famous for his work in the surgical sciences at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland.
Although the name Vivien is most widely thought of as a female name, Vivien Theodore Thomas was a male. Given the name Vivien by his mother early in her pregnancy, sure that she was going to have a girl, there was no doubt that Thomas was male.
Although he did not have formal training beyond high school, he endured poverty and racism to become recognized as a pioneer in cardiac operative techniques. He became a teacher of operative techniques to some of the world’s most preeminent surgeons, including Dr. Denton Cooley and Dr. William P. Longmire, Jr.
Dr. Denton Cooley performed the first implantation of a total artificial heart. Dr. William P. Longmire, Jr. went on to become the Chairman of Surgery at University of California Los Angeles, (UCLA)
Vivien Theodore Thomas was born in New Iberia, Louisiana, August 29, 1910. Thomas worked as a carpenter to earn money for college and medical school but suffered a major setback with he Great Depression which started in 1929. He lost both his job and his entire savings with this event.
Thomas had a strong interest in the field of medicine which he maintained despite the setback. Although his work as a carpenter was praised, he was laid off so other workers could continue to work.
Thomas was fortunate to get a job at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee. Although the job did not involve medicine, he was able to work with the noted Dr. Alfred Blalock. Because of his deep love of the work and aptitude, he was able to impress and start working with Blalock in a medical capacity.
When Blalock made it known that he was moving to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, Vivien at first was going to remain in Nashville rather than uproot his family, until it was made known that after Blalock left that Thomas was going to be fired as Vanderbilt Chief Surgeon Dr. Barney Brooks had no desire for any Blacks to work at Vanderbilt.
Thomas was able to continue to work with Dr. Blalock when Blalock moved from Vanderbilt to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Thomas performed the work of a lab tech, but because of racist policies in wide practice, he was paid as a janitor for many years. The work Thomas was actually doing was that of a postdoctoral researcher.
The work for which Thomas is best known was finding a solution for cyanotic heart disease which is commonly called blue baby syndrome. The name comes from the blue color in the patient, caused by the lack of fully oxygenated blood. This work was done at Johns Hopkins.
The work that Blalock and Thomas had done at Vanderbilt put Blalock in the forefront of American surgery. He was then offered the position of Chief of Surgery at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins which he accepted with he stipulation that Thomas would accompany him.
In 1941, there was a severe housing shortage in Baltimore, and as unbelievable as it sounds, racism that was worse than that found in Nashville. Baltimore was rigidly segregated. Many laws and practices prevented Blacks from moving to housing in White communities. Black communities suffered because of the economic level of people who were denied higher paying jobs, even if they were qualified.
The only Blacks employed at Hopkins were janitors. When Thomas would walk the halls of Hopkins, in his white lab coat, many people would react in such a fashion that he began to change into city clothes when he walked from the laboratory to Blalock’s office.
The treatment that Thomas received may be hard to believe by those who have not been subjected to, or observed such actions on a regular basis, but this is mild compared to what some Blacks had to endure.
The research that Blalock and Thomas did was focused on the cause and treatment of shock. This research evolved and resulted in saving the lives of many soldiers injured on the battlefields during World War II.
Their work invalidated traditional theories that were based on the belief that shock was caused by toxins in the blood rather than the true cause involving the flow of blood and blood pressure in the body. Their work centered on scientific research that shock resulted from fluid loss outside of the vascular system and that it could be effectively treated by fluid replacement.
Their work pioneered research in the field of vascular and cardiac surgery. They defied the traditional belief against operating on the heart. This work led to revolutionary lifesaving surgeries that they would perform decades later while at Johns Hopkins.
In 1943, they began to work with renown pediatric cardiologist Helen Taussig on the complex and fatal anomaly commonly called blue baby syndrome. Infants born with the defect suffer because blood is shunted past the lungs, which deprives the blood from being oxygenated.
Pink color comes from properly oxygenated blood. Improperly or poorly oxygenated blood results in cyanotic (blue as in blue printer ink – cyan).
Taussig believed that it was possible to reroute the blood to increase the flow to the lungs. This fact was revealed in Thomas’s autobiography published in 1985 “Partners of the Heart: Vivien Thomas and His Work with Alfred Blalock: An Autobiography”.
Blalock and Thomas realized that the solution to blue baby syndrome was based on a procedure they had perfected in their work at Vanderbilt which increased blood flow to the lungs.
Their initial work involved dogs. Thomas created the condition in a dog named Anna, then corrected the condition with the new procedure. Anna became a long-term survivor of the procedure and is the only animal to have her portrait hang on the walls of Johns Hopkins.
Thomas demonstrated that the corrective procedure could be performed successfully, which persuaded Blalock of the safety of the procedure. Blalock was so impressed with the work of Thomas that when he inspected the work he said, “This looks like something the Lord made” This became the title of a movie about the work of Blalock and Thomas.
Although Thomas was not allowed to operate on patients, he was able to assist Blalock during the surgery.
The procedure was first tried on an infant named Eileen Saxon, November 29, 1943. Blue baby syndrome made her lips and fingers turn blue (cyanotic). The rest of her skin had a faint blue tinge. There were other physical difficulties caused by the condition. She was only able to take a few steps before beginning to breathe heavily.
There were no instruments for the new surgery, so Thomas adapted the needles, clamps and other medical instruments. During the actual surgery on Eileen Saxon, at the request of Blalock, Thomas stood on a step stool at Blalock’s shoulder and coached him step by step through the procedure.
Remember Thomas had performed the surgery with amazing success hundreds of times on dogs. Blalock had only performed the surgery once, while assisting Thomas, before operating on Eileen. The surgery was a partial success and prolonged the life and quality of Eileen’s life. Although Thomas was proficient, he was prevented by law from performing surgery on humans.
Blalock and his team operated again, this time on an 11-year-old girl and the surgery was a complete success. The girl was able to leave the hospital in only 3 weeks.
The next surgery was on a 6-year-old boy who regained normal color by the end of the surgery.
These 3 cases, Eileen, the 11-year-old girl and the 6-year-old boy became the basis of an article that was published in the May 1945 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. That article gave credit to Blalock and Taussig and made no mention of Thomas at all.
News of the procedure circulated around the world, fueled by the Associated Press. Newsreels touted the event. All this publicity greatly enhanced the status of Johns Hopkins and Dr. Blalock.
Up to this time, Blalock had not been completely accepted by the more established members of the medical world. Thomas’ contributions remained unacknowledged by either the Johns Hopkins University or Dr. Blalock.
The operation to correct blue baby syndrome was in great demand and was performed on more than 200 patients within the first year. Parents desperate for a solution to their suffering children came from thousands of miles away.
Thomas was a talented surgeon and his proficiency covered many procedures included one he developed in 1946 to improve circulation in patients with problems of the great vessels.
The great vessels are the large vessels that bring blood to and from the heart and include the superior vena cava, inferior vena cava, pulmonary arteries, pulmonary veins and the aorta.
Transposition of the great vessels is a group of congenital heart defects involving an abnormal spatial arrangement of any of the great vessels.
The aorta is the main artery in the human body, bringing flood from the left ventricle to the abdomen, where it splits into two smaller arteries. The function of the aorta is to distribute oxygenated blood to all parts of the body.
This procedure is called an atrial septectomy and is the procedure that was executed so flawlessly by Thomas that Blalock upon examining the nearly undetectable suture line made the comment referred to earlier in the article “Vivien, this looks like something the Lord made”.
Thomas trained a host of young surgeons during the 1940s. He was a legend and the model of a dexterous and efficient surgeon. Dr. Denton Cooley, the first to implant an artificial heart in a human is quoted “even if you’d never seen surgery before, you could do it because Vivien made it look so simple”, “There wasn’t a false move, not one wasted motion when he operated”.
Although he was highly respected by the surgeons and lab technicians he trained, Thomas was not well paid. To supplement his pay, he often worked as a bartender at Blalock’s parties. This resulting in him serving drinks to people he had been teaching earlier in the day.
Put on the spot, Blalock interceded on Thomas’s behalf and by 1946, Thomas became the highest paid Black at the institution. Even this was below the skills and innovations that he gave so freely to mankind.
At the age of 37, Thomas investigated the possibility of returning to school, pursing a degree and medical school but was deterred by the inflexibility of institutions of higher learning to grant credit for life experiences, insisting that he start as a new freshman.
Realizing that he would approaching 50 by the time he completed his medical degree, he reluctantly gave up on the idea.
Thomas continued to work at Hopkins 15 years after the death of Blalock in 1965 and held the position of Director of Surgical Research Laboratories.
Thomas mentored many Black laboratory technicians. He taught Levi Watkins, Jr. who became Hopkins first Black Cardiac resident. Thomas assisted him in his groundbreaking work on the use of the automatic implantable defibrillator.
In 1968 a portrait was commissioned by many of the surgeons trained by Thomas. Many had become chiefs of surgery throughout America. Today, the portrait by Bob Gee hangs next to that of Blalock in the lobby of the Alfred Blalock Clinical Sciences Building.
Thomas’s nephew Koco Eaton graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He received training from many of the physicians his highly regarded uncle had trained. Specializing in orthopedic medicine, he is the team doctor of the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the United Soccer League
In 1976 Thomas was appointed to the faculty of the School of Medicine as Instructor of Surgery. John Hopkins University also presented Thomas with an honorary doctorate degree. Because of restrictions, he was given the Honorary Doctor of Laws rather than a medical doctorate. This allowed the staff, students and others to call him Doctor.
In July 2006, Hopkins began the practice of splitting incoming first-year students into 4 colleges.
Each of these was named for a famous Hopkins faculty member who had major impacts on the history of medicine. Those colleges are named for
Helen Brooke Taussig – known for her work in the field of pediatric cardiology. She is credited with developing the concept of a procedure that has extended the lives of children born with blue baby syndrome. The procedure is widely known as Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt.
Taussig also worked to ban thalidomide, a drug responsible for upwards of 7,000 infants being born with malformed limbs.
Those subjected to thalidomide experienced limb deficiencies in a way that the long limbs were not developed or presented themselves as stumps. Only 40% even survived.
Florence Rena Sabin – American medical scientist. A pioneer of women in science. The first woman to hold a full professorship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences. The first woman to head a department at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research.
During her retirement Dr. Florence Sabin pursued a second career as a public health activist in Colorado and was awarded the Lasker Award in 1951. The Lasker Award is awarded for contributions in the area of public service in medicine.
Daniel Nathans – American microbiologist who shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application in restriction mapping.
Restriction mapping deals with restriction sites within a sequence of DNA. It requires the use of restriction enzymes.
The fourth of course was named for Dr. Vivien Theodore Thomas
Thomas retired in 1979 and began work on his autobiography. The book was published days after he died of pancreatic cancer on November 26, 1985.
Washingtonian writer Katie McCabe learned of Thomas on the day of his death and brought the story to public attention in 1989 in an article entitled “Like Something the Lord Made”, the quote of Dr. Blalock after seeing the remarkable work of Thomas in suturing of a bypass that was at the heart of the solution of the blue baby syndrome correction.
That article won the 1990 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and so inspired filmmaker Andrea Kalin to make a PBS documentary “Partners of the Heart” broadcast in 2003 on the show American Experiences. That work won the Erik Barnouw Award for Best documentary in 2004.
The article was developed into an HBO film “Something the Lord Made” winner of the Emmy and Peabody Award in 2004.
As you scroll down through the books and videos, you will encounter some value offers. These take you directly to Amazon where you can do all your shopping. We encourage you to use our links as we receive a small royalty without cost to you. These funds help us continue to provide you with quality information.
To see the full listing of posts, click on our Blog list
For Black History Month 2020, we posted daily. To see the posts, click here
For Black History 2021, we posted daily. To see the posts, click here
This post is part of a Black History Month 2022 series. To see all posts, click here
To comment or make suggestions on future posts, use Contact Us
We encourage you to share the site on social media.
Use our links to Amazon anytime you shop Amazon. We receive a small royalty without cost to you. Continue to scroll for fascinating Videos and Books to enhance your learning experience.
Continue scrolling down for more amazing information, videos, books and value items.
**
Movie based on true story “Something the Lord Made”
Alfred Blalock (1899-1964), a cardiologist (therefore, self-confident to the point of arrogance), leaves Vanderbilt for Johns Hopkins taking with him his lab technician, Vivien Thomas (1910-1985). Thomas, an African-American without a college degree, is a gifted mechanic and tool-maker with hands splendidly adept at surgery. In 1941, Blalock and Thomas take on the challenge of blue babies and invent bypass surgery. After trials on dogs, their first patient is baby Eileen, sure to die without the surgery. In defiance of custom and Jim Crow, Blalock brings Thomas into the surgery to advise him, but when Life Magazine and kudos come, Thomas is excluded. Will he receive his due?
**
Echo Dot
** .
Partners of the Heart:
Vivien Thomas and His Work with Alfred Blalock: An Autobiography Visitors to the Blalock Building at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center are greeted by portraits of two great men. One, of renowned heart surgeon Alfred Blalock, speaks for itself. The other, of high school graduate Vivien Thomas, is testimony to the incredible genius and determination of the first black man to hold a professional position at one of America’s premier medical institutions. Thomas’s dreams of attending medical school were dashed when the Depression hit. After spending some time as a carpenter’s apprentice, Thomas took what he expected to be a temporary job as a technician in Blalock’s lab. The two men soon became partners and together invented the field of cardiac surgery. Partners of the Heart is Thomas’s extraordinary autobiography. Trained in laboratory techniques by Alfred Blalock and Joseph W. Beard, Thomas remained Blalock’s principal technician and laboratory chief for the rest of Blalock’s distinguished career. Thomas very rapidly learned to perform surgery, to do chemical determinations, and to carry out physiologic studies. He became a phenomenal technician and was able to carry out complicated experimental cardiac operations totally unassisted and to devise new ones. In addition to telling Thomas’s life story, Partners of the Heart
**
Television
**
Vivien Thomas, from janitor to pioneer in heart surgery
Vivien Thomas was an African-American man who went from janitor to lab technician to pioneer in heart surgery at Johns Hopkins. Racial barriers in the 1930s created huge obstacles for him, but he never gave up on his passion for medicine.
**
Kindle Unlimited Membership Plans
Kindle is one of the best ways to have access to a wonderful world of education, entertainment and enlightment
Kindle Unlimited Membership Plans
**
Tiny Stitches: The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas
Vivien Thomas’s greatest dream was to attend college to study medicine. But after the stock market crashed in 1929, Vivien lost all his savings. Then he heard about a job opening at the Vanderbilt University medical school under the supervision of Dr. Alfred Blalock. Vivien knew that the all-white school would never admit him as a student, but he hoped working there meant he was getting closer to his dream.
**
Medical Books
Many of us are mystified by medicine. While studying the topics of your choice won’t make you a doctor or surgeon, it will arm you with great information. If only to be able to talk intelligently to your doctor, the search begins here using our link below
**
9 minute video – Thomas was going to be fired after Blalock left Vanderbilt
**
Biographies and Memoirs
Fascinated by the stories that you see on Amazing Black History? While we make suggestions based on the post, you can often find more here using our Amazon affiliate link below
**
A Chat with Vivien Thomas
Was the 1St to Interview Mr. Thomas on His Extraordinary Technical Discoveries Used in Dr Alfred Blalock ‘s ‘Blue Baby Operation ” Experience the interview with Mr. Thomas himself as though you were there the history making development of the Blue Baby Operation
ABH – A Chat with Vivien Thomas
**
We search to find you value every day. This ad is updated daily, check it often and pay attention to the time left
**
10 minute video – Thomas the forgotten man NHD Nationals 2016 — Vivien Thomas and the Blue Babies
**
Computers – Tablets and Components
The world awaits your inquiry. The computer is the key. In addition, it can do so much more to advance your connections with the world. Start your search using our Amazon affiliate link below
ABH – Computers Tablets and Components
**
Who Fixed Babies’ Hearts?
Vivien Thomas (I Like Inventors!) A perfect biography for young readers, and a very inspiring story! Vivien Thomas worked hard to make a new way to help babies’ hearts. Learn about his life and the surgery he invented. Make your own stethoscope, too.
**
Computer Printers
We all know the value of printers and most of us use them often. Remember the search starts with our Amazon affiliate link below
**
Tell it Tuesday
**
Camara and Photo
An amazing world awaits, great hobby and even profession. Your search starts here with a great assortment of cameras and equipment with the link below
**
The African-American Heart Surgery Pioneer:
The Genius of Vivien Thomas (Genius Inventors and Their Great Ideas) Vivien Theodore Thomas was an African-American surgical technician who developed the procedures used to treat blue baby syndrome in the 1940s. He was an assistant to surgeon Alfred Blalock in Blalock’s experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and later at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. 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. Vivien Thomas was the first African American without a doctorate to perform open heart surgery on a white patient in the United States
ABH – African American Heart Surgeon
**
Video Games
**
2 self-taught doctors
**
Shoes – Handbags – Wallets and Sunglasses
A great assortment starts here
ABH – Shoes – Handbags – Wallets and Sunglasses
**
Breakthrough
How Three People Saved “Blue Babies” and Changed Medicine Forever In 1944, a groundbreaking operation repaired the congenital heart defect known as blue baby syndrome. The operation’s success brought the surgeon Alfred Blalock international fame and paved the way for open-heart surgery. But the technique had been painstakingly developed by Vivien Thomas, Blalock’s African American lab assistant, who stood behind Blalock in the operating room to give him step-by-step instructions.