Vivien Theodore Thomas was an African American surgical technician who developed the techniques used to treat blue baby syndrome. He served as supervisor of the surgical laboratories at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD for 35 years. First, Thomas tested the techniques that would be used to treat blue baby syndrome on animals to make sure it would work. In 1944, Dr. Alan Blalock performed the first successful "blue baby" operation. Thomas advised Blalock through the operation.
In 1976, Johns Hopkins University presented Thomas with an honorary doctorate.[2] Because of certain restrictions, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws, rather than a medical doctorate, but it did allow the staff and students of Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to call him doctor. After having worked there for 37 years, Thomas was also finally appointed to the faculty of the School of Medicine as Instructor of Surgery.
Without any education past high school, Dr. 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. He was the first African American without a doctorate to perform open heart surgery on a white patient in the United States.
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