How Vivien Thomas changed medicine and became a symbol of fighting racism in science: His contribution to the treatment of Tetralogy of Fallot

Abstract

The story of Vivien Thomas (1910-1985) is about a person who changed the course of cardiothoracic surgery. Through double standards and prejudice in society, due to the color of his skin, his accomplishments were not duly recognized. 1 Together with the physician Alfred Blalock (1899-1964) and cardiologist Helen Taussig (1898-1986), Vivien Thomas developed a method of arterial shunting that helped to save the lives of thousands of children with congenital "blue baby" heart defects, including tetralogy of Fallot. Thomas was the first to perform a successful shunt operation on a dog's heart (1944) and also produced the necessary tools for its successful implementation. Only at the age of 60 did he receive recognition for his years of work and was awarded a doctoral degree. He became the first Black person whose portrait was hung at Johns Hopkins University alongside presidents and professors of the university. His story inspired the creation of the films "Something the Lord Made" (2004) and "Partners of the Heart" (2003). This article aims to shed light on the unrecognized contributions of Vivien Thomas and to call for the addition of his name to the Blalock-Thomas- Taussig shunt, which would be a just recognition of his contributions to the history of medicine, despite the skin color.

Keywords

• tetralogy of fallot
• heart defects
• congenital
• cardiac surgery procedures
• blalock-taussig shunt
• vivien thomas