Vivien Theodore Thomas was an American laboratory supervisor who, in the 1940s, played a major role in developing the procedure now called the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt, used to treat blue baby syndrome, alongside surgeon Alfred Blalock and cardiologist Helen B. Taussig. Without any education past high school, Thomas rose to become a cardiac surgery pioneer and a teacher of operative techniques to many of the country's most prominent surgeons.
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1. Wikidata: Vivien Thomas
- Wikidata Q739020, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)
- Wikidata P569 (w-bbfill-medicine3-0926)
View the Source2. Vivien Thomas (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead section (entity-description)
Vivien Theodore Thomas was an American laboratory supervisor who, in the 1940s, played a major role in developing a procedure now called the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt used to treat blue baby syndrome along with surgeon Alfred Blalock and cardiologist Helen B. Taussig. ... Without any education past high school, Thomas rose above poverty to become a cardiac surgery pioneer and a teacher of operative techniques to many of the country's most prominent surgeons.
Infobox (birth-date)
Born: 1910-08-29
Infobox (birth-year)
Born: 1910-08-29
Infobox (death-date)
Died: 1985-11-26
Infobox (death-year)
Died: 1985-11-26
View the Source Frequently Asked Questions
What was Vivien Thomas's role in treating blue baby syndrome?
He helped develop the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt with Alfred Blalock and Helen B. Taussig.
Vivien Thomas played a major role in the 1940s in developing a procedure now called the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt, used to treat blue baby syndrome, along with surgeon Alfred Blalock and cardiologist Helen B. Taussig. He was the assistant to Blalock in Blalock's experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University and later at Johns Hopkins University.
What education did Vivien Thomas have?
None beyond high school; he still supervised Johns Hopkins surgical laboratories for 35 years.
Thomas did not have any professional education or experience in a research laboratory, yet 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.
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