I happened to catch a movie showing on TV this afternoon entitled: "Something that Came from God" about Dr. Alfred Blalock and his African American assistant,Dr. Vivien Thomas. Both were involved in the historic cardiac operation that led to the saving of many so-called "blue babies." These infants had congenital heart abnormalities which made their heart pump more un-oxygenated blood into their system thus causing them to turn blue.
In their effort to find a solution to the blue baby syndrome they of course went through a lot of basic analyzing of how the problem came about. But what was "creative" was that they tried creating the problem by experimenting on normal dogs, so that if they knew how the problem came about ,they could undo it.
They had failures in their experimentation but that led them to the correct way of doing things and even serendipitous solutions.
The inspiring angle of the movie was that Dr. Viv Thomas was a carpenter who had dreams of becoming a doctor. He never had formal education on medicine, but learned on the job. He died in 1985, accorded an honorary doctor's rank by the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
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