How This Janitor Defied Medical History In The Most Unexpected Way
Black History Year
PushBlack
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2023
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Holding her infant to her chest, a woman pushed past the young man sweeping the floor. Her child was suffocating. She couldn’t wait for the doctor. Smiling, the young man left his broom and reached for the baby. What was he doing?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Holding her infant to her chest, a woman pushed past the young man sweeping the floor. |
| 0:07.6 | Her child was suffocating, she couldn't wait for the doctor. |
| 0:11.6 | Smiling, the young man left his broom and reached for the baby. |
| 0:16.7 | What was he doing? |
| 0:18.3 | This is two-minute black history. |
| 0:20.5 | What you didn't learn in school. |
| 0:31.1 | Vivian Thomas could have been a real-life superman. |
| 0:34.6 | By day he was cleaning toilets, but by the time the day ended he had advised some of the nation's |
| 0:40.8 | brightest surgeons on life-saving procedures. |
| 0:44.8 | How could this be? |
| 0:48.2 | Thomas always wanted to be a doctor, but just when he was ready to attend college, the |
| 0:53.7 | stock market crashed and so did his ability to pay for school. |
| 0:58.6 | Broke and disappointed, he took a job as a janitor at the medical school, but then something |
| 1:04.6 | extraordinary happened. |
| 1:07.2 | He became friends with a white surgeon who immediately saw Thomas's genius. |
| 1:12.8 | Though Thomas was barely out of high school, he was able to give the surgeon advice on |
| 1:17.7 | procedures and recommend new ways to save lives, and he did this with zero medical schooling. |
| 1:25.7 | Thomas's work saved countless lives from wartime injuries, but one of his greatest accomplishments |
| 1:32.2 | was creating and perfecting a procedure that helped save the lives of children with heart |
| 1:37.6 | defects. |
| 1:39.2 | Over the course of his life, he eventually acquired medical training, ran a prestigious |
| 1:44.6 | research lab and served as a mentor to black medical students. |
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