Have you heard of a Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt for rerouting subclavian arterial blood to the lungs as palliation for cyanotic congenital heart disease (CHD)? But the BT shunt would never have seen ...

Dr. Vivien Thomas (1910-1985) was an African-American surgical technician and pioneering figure in medical history whose contributions to the field of heart surgery made an indelible impact. Despite ...

Infants with various forms of congenital heart disease require a stable source of blood flow to their lungs in order to survive until a more definitive operation can be performed. In a recent study, ...

Taussig persuaded Dr. Alfred Blalock, a vascular surgeon, to try and relieve the obstruction. With Vivien Thomas, Blalock proved Taussig's hypothesis, then worked with her to develop a procedure, ...

Dr. Vivien Thomas was born with the skill to mend broken hearts. Armed with the brain of a scientist and the hands of a craft carpenter, he stands today as one of the world’s most influential cardiac ...

Blalock accepted her challenge to develop a surgical procedure to relieve that obstruction. First, with Thomas, he demonstrated that Taussig's hypothesis was correct in laboratory animals. Then he and ...