Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Daniel Hale WIlliams

  • African American medical pioneers

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   The road for African Americans in the medical professions has not been easy. Enslaved Africans received no education.1 During the first half of the nineteenth-century medical schools in the North would admit only a very small number of black students. Even after the Civil War, African Americans continued…

  • Dr. Robert E. Gross and first operations in cardiovascular surgery

    Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States There is a myth that Dr. Robert E. Gross (1905-1988), a Harvard surgeon, performed the first cardiovascular surgery. There is no question that he performed the first successful major operation on the great vessels near the heart in which the patient survived, the ligation of a patent ductus arteriosus…