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"The story was fascinating, but so incredible I doubted its voracity."
Submitted by: Avon J. Bellamy, Baltimore, MD
In 1970, while I was awaiting entrance to JHU's Writing Seminars, I worked for a short time as a public information writer for Hopkins Hospital. Human-interest stories and any interesting information about Hopkin's programs or personnel were my beat. I was brand spanking new as they say and knew absolutely nothing about the hospital; so I roamed around meeting people. A lab technician that I met told me about Vivien Thomas and his affiliation with the Blue Baby operation and Dr. Blalock. The story was fascinating, but so incredible I doubted its voracity. I decided to find and interview the man. The interview was awesome. He was an amazingly gracious man given his status - he actually trained some of the top surgeons in the country and he did that without a medical degree. He had an incredible sense of style, composure, and humor; an engaging smile, a robust laugh, very strong convictions, racial pride and integrity, and an ever-present pipe. When I told him that I wanted to do a story on him, he refused me because as he put it, "I promised a little girl over there that I was going to let her do a story on me; if not for my promise to her, I'd let you do it." I knew that he liked me, I knew he had a kinship with me (I was the first African American PR person at Hopkins), and I knew he wanted to give me the chance to establish myself in the PR department, but he kept his word to my white female counterpart. I was impressed by that demonstration of integrity. Shortly after that I began my fellowship with the University and never saw him in person again though I read about him from time to time in the papers. He was truly a great man; I am extremely pleased that HBO did his story and is showing the world what a uniquely skilled person he was and what a tremendous contribution he made to the medical field.
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