Baby Blues

“Moral courage is a highly esteemed trait displayed by individuals, who, despite adversity and personal risk, decide to act upon their ethical values to help others during difficult ethical dilemmas. These individuals strive to do the right thing” (“Medscape” 1). Vivien Thomas is the definition of a morally courageous person. In his magnificent life he had to overcome incredible odds in order to fulfill his dreams and make a difference. He had to overcome the fact that he was a black man during a time when blacks were discriminated against and did not have equal rights. He had to overcome not having a college degree or attending medical school. He had to deal with the disappointment of being overlooked in the medical field even with his accomplishments. Others such as Oskar Schindler also displayed moral courage, around the same time period, but in Nazi Germany. In Schindler’s case, he risked his life every single day to save another group of people, Jewish girls and boys. Both Schindler and Thomas showed great amounts of moral courage in their own way. They did not give up even in the face of discrimination and under the threat of death. Their morally courageous acts made them stand out and now men, women, and children view them as role models.

Vivien Thomas was born in 1910 in Louisiana. Thomas’s dream was to go to college and then medical school to become a surgeon. With the Thomas instead had to find a job. He was hired as a lab technician by Dr. Alfred Blalock in 1930 at . In

1941, Vivien Thomas moved to John Hopkins University in with Dr. Blalock. Blalock insisted that Thomas had to be hired because he wanted Thomas to help as his surgical assistant.

His official job title and pay was a janitor. Thomas had always wanted to do something in the medical field, but while working at John Hopkins, he could not use the same hallways, entrances, or restrooms as any of the white men and women working there. While working together “Thomas and Blalock pioneered the field of surgery with a procedure to alleviate a congenital heart defect, the ” (“Footprints” 1). Though they developed the procedure together, Thomas worked out the final details of the surgery and taught them to Blalock. Thomas practiced the surgery hundreds of times on laboratory dogs, but in the end Thomas had to guide Blalock through the surgery instead of performing it himself.

Thomas actually stood behind Blalock making suggestions through the whole surgery.

Even with all of his hard work and skill Thomas was not given recognition for his hard work until the early 1970s because he was a black man. Most black men and women were not treated as equals during the time he performed his research. Thomas did what he knew was right even though he was called many horrible racial slurs and he was at risk of being killed for being black. Thomas did not care about the risks; he did what was right to save the “blue babies”. The color of the man’s skin black or white, doesn’t really matter to me, in the end he did what he knew in his heart was right. I know that I am very thankful for Vivien Thomas’s hard work every day because without his moral courage I might not be here today.

I am one of those “blue babies”. I was born with Tetrology of Fallot and without the work of Thomas I would have died when I was 8 months old. The surgery that Blalock and Thomas pioneered was performed on me and helped save my life when I collapsed. Thomas’s work had a direct impact on my life expectancy. Thomas did not want to sit back, accept his place in society, and just do janitorial work. He wanted to make a difference, and in the process he changed many lives forever including mine. Thomas might not have been there for my surgery, but it felt like he was looking over my surgeon’s shoulders, and telling him how to do the surgery step by step.

Thanks to Vivien Thomas I get to live a long life. I am grateful to him and his work will never go unappreciated in my eyes. There have been many morally courageous people in the world. We have Ghandi, Nelson

Mandela, and Vivien Thomas, but one man sticks out to me out of the thousands of morally courageous people on earth, and that man is Oskar Schindler. Oskar saved children from going into the death camps by having them work in his factory. If Oskar was caught he could have been killed, or put in a concentration camp, but Oskar did not focus on that. He focused on what he was doing and how it was going to save thousands of children's lives. Oskar spent millions protecting Jewish boys and girls. Oskar might have died penniless, but he died with the satisfaction of knowing that he saved over 1200 boys and girls from being sent to concentration camps. Some say that it is difficult to make a difference, but Thomas and Schindler made it look so simple. Following the crowd might be easy, but Schindler and Thomas did not follow the crowd, instead they followed a different path. They decided to take the road “less traveled by and that has made all the difference” (Frost 19-20).

Works Cited "Medscape Log In." Medscape Log In. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.

"Oskar Schindler, Rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust." Oskar Schindler, Rescuer of Jews

during the Holocaust. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

"Footprints Through Time: Vivien Thomas (1910-1985)." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

"Vivien Thomas." Scientists: Their Lives and Works. Detroit: UXL, 2006. N. pag. Biography in

Context. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.