Daniel Hale Williams, M.D. |
A Pennsylvania native, Daniel Hale Williams, M.D., opened the first medical facility to have an interracial staff — Provident Hospital — in the early 1890s in Chicago. But he is probably best known as the first physician to successfully complete open-heart surgery.
His patient was a man named James Cornish, who had been stabbed in the chest. According to biography.com: “Without the benefits of a blood transfusion or modern surgical procedures, Williams successfully sutured Cornish’s pericardium (the membranous sac enclosing the heart).” The website also reports that Cornish lived for many years following the operation.
For more information on this groundbreaking African-American physician and surgeon, go to:
Biography.com: Daniel Hale Williams.