Nationwide — Just in time for Black History Month, a new website appears (VivienThomasBook.com) with fresh findings about Mr. Vivien Thomas, the lab technician best known for his Blue Baby surgery. It is designed for students, teachers, and parents, and includes a timeline describing all of the key events in Thomas’s life as well as displaying 30 different photos illustrating his life and medical accomplishments. This website also explains the harmful impact that segregation had on Mr. Thomas and his family.Readers will learn of Thomas’s extensive contribution to solving the mystery of traumatic shock, which immediately resulted in saving lives during World War II and many millions more in the years since. The two different groundbreaking heart surgeries Thomas created are described, including the famous “Blue Baby Surgery” which was the subject of the movie Something the Lord Made.
The website also shows Thomas’s involvement in the early efforts to develop CPR and the electric defibrillator, both of which are now routinely used to save the lives of people having heart attacks.
If you are looking for a great way to quickly understand how medical progress is made or what life was like in the United States until race discrimination was outlawed, the website provides a fascinating way to do so. The website is based on material taken from the first biography written for adults about this twentieth-century medical pioneer, Vivien Thomas: The Man Who Overcame Racism to Save Millions of Lives by Jan Pottker.
Learn more at VivienThomasBook.com
For press inquiries, send an email to Jan@VivienThomasBook.com