Vivien Thomas Biography

Vivien Thomas was an African-American lab supervisor who developed a procedure to treat blue baby syndrome. Blue baby syndrome is a condition wherein newborn babies have bluishness in their bodies owing to congenital heart conditions. Born at a time when racism was at its peak, Thomas struggled hard to emerge as one of the leading cardiac surgery pioneers of his time. He worked as the assistant to Alfred Blalock, a famous heart surgeon at Vanderbilt University and later at Johns Hopkins University. He then continued as the supervisor of surgical laboratories in Johns Hopkins for nearly 35 years. Though he had supervised multiple heart surgeries and taught various world-famous heart surgeons, he was never allowed to operate on a living human being directly as he didn’t have the necessary qualification to conduct it. After his retirement, he started working on his autobiography titled ‘Pioneering Research in Surgical Shock and Cardiovascular Surgery: Vivien Thomas and His Work with Alfred Blalock’. In 2004, an HBO movie named ‘Something the Lord Made,’ which was based on the life of Vivien Thomas, was aired. Mos Def, an American actor, portrayed the role of Vivien in this movie.