I don't usually do movie reviews here, but I saw a biopic on Friday that truly touched my heart. "Something the Lord Made" is a wonderful film about the work Vivien Thomas did with Dr. Alfred Blalock in the 1930s and 40s. Thomas had no college degree, but was exceptionally bright and did the work of a post-doctoral fellow with Blalock, working on tramatic shock patients and ultimately developing a life-saving procedure for Tetralogy of Fallot patients.

It is astounding that I never learned about Thomas up to this point in my life. Here is a story of a black man making an enormous contribution to medicine. He and Blalock INVENTED heart surgery. Thomas perfected the procedure known as the Blalock-Taussig shunt (please note the absence of Thomas' name in the procedure!) by doing the procedure in the lab on dogs over 200 times. Blalock was coached by Thomas for the first 100 procedures on humans. Thomas would later train dozens of surgeons at Johns Hopkins. All without a medical degree.

As a side note, I feel like we should be teaching our kids about people like Thomas. Certainly, we should teach them about the heroes of the anti-slavery movement and de-segregation. But what about black men and women who have made extraordinary contributions to science, medicine, mathematics, literature, etc.? I for one cannot wait to tell Amsale that one of the men who pioneered heart surgery had the same color skin as her.

One final note about the film. It is equally about social justice as it is medicine. Pay, recognition, appreciation, prejudice all figure prominently. One example that stands out to me now: when Thomas first arrived at Johns Hopkins, he was forced to use the rear entrance like all the other black people. By the end of his career, his portrait hung in the atrium along side Blalock and Hopkins himself. And though it took decades, he could finally walk through the front door of that building.

Make plans to watch this film soon. It is worth the time of anyone to watch it. But those of you who have a child with Tetralogy of Fallot who happen to also have brown skin will most deeply appreciate it!

And that's the news from Browerville.

One post-script. If you prefer, you can read the article that inspired the film here

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