Babies born with heart defects that affected the flow of oxygen were called blue babies because their extremities would be blue instead of a healthy pink. Cardiac surgery was not something doctors even considered as the heart was a sacred organ and to cut into it seemed wrong. That all changed in the 1940s at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.

Dr. Helen Taussig was the head of the pediatrics unit and was tired of seeing her patients die. She enlisted the help of Dr. Alfred Blalock and his assistant Vivien Thomas to come up with a way to fix the hearts of these tiny patients. Dr. Blalock was a famous surgeon and researcher who revolutionized the way shock was treated. Thomas was a young African American who was unable to attend medical school but was one of the best researchers and surgeons. Dr. Blalock directed Thomas to find a way to redirect oxygen to the heart and he did. In fact, Dr. Blalock had only performed the surgery on a dog once when he was called in to perform it on a human.

Eileen Saxon was 18 months old and not going to make it unless they intervened. Dr. Blalock, Dr. Taussig and Thomas enlisted a team and performed the first surgery to correct the blue baby problem. It revolutionized cardiac medicine. 

What was most interesting about this story was that Vivien Thomas was the actual person who came up with the solution, the surgery procedures and the instruments. He perfected the surgery on dogs before teaching it to Dr. Blalock, but it wasn't until years later that he got the recognition he deserved for his contributions.