Synopsis

This is the story of an improbable collaboration: a white surgeon and a Black technician whose partnership resulted in a life-saving procedure for blue-baby syndrome in 1944. The key figures were Vivien Thomas, a man of limited formal education but extraordinary skill, and Dr. Alfred Blalock, the esteemed chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins. While Blalock is credited with pioneering the surgery to correct this congenital heart defect, it was Thomas who conceived the specific techniques employed. A