Meet the Man Who Overcame Racism to Save Millions of Lives

First Biography For Adults About Vivien Thomas Just Released

Nationwide — For the first time, the authentic story of Vivien Thomas (1910-1985), the astonishing Black, high-school educated, surgical lab researcher who made medical history through his creation of life-saving surgeries and medical cures is being told in a book entitled Vivien Thomas: The Man Who Overcame Racism to Save Millions of Lives by Jan Pottker. His life story is more than a narrative of one overlooked person’s life; it is a description of the personal and societal impact resulting from the pervasive racism of twentieth-century America. Until now, Thomas’s life has never been explored in a biography for adults.

Pottker fills this void with this just-released biography, her ninth book. Pottker served for three decades as a research chief and analyst for the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and she earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University. As Donna E. Shalala, the former Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, says: “Jan Pottker is a top-rate researcher and writer. In Vivien Thomas, she devotes her considerable talents to uncovering the authentic story behind one of the seminal figures in modern American medicine.”

Pottker’s new and original material will surprise readers because Vivien Thomas’ groundbreaking medical research went far beyond the blue baby surgery to include a second groundbreaking cardiac surgery as well as treatment for traumatic shock, which has saved millions of lives. It will anger readers because Vivien Thomas’ work went unrecognized because he was Black while white physicians took full credit for his many accomplishments. It will inspire readers because Vivien Thomas remained focused on his mission in life, as Thomas said, to find solutions to the health problems of the “Human Race,” despite the racially hostile environments in which he lived and worked.

This is a provocative story that unmasks the intersection of race and medicine while revealing the betrayal of a brilliant and honorable man by those who owed him the most.

About the Book
Vivien Thomas: The Man Who Overcame Racism to Save Millions of Lives
By Jan Pottker
ISBN 979-8-9893325-2-6 Hardcover
ISBN 979-8-9893325-1-9 Paper
ISBN 979-8-9893325-0-2 (eBook)
Available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and order directly from independent bookstores.

Also, be sure to visit the official website for the book at VivienThomasBook.com

For press inquiries, contact Jan@VivienThomasBook.com