# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/vivien-thomas
# Generated: 2026-08-13T07:57:34.757Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/vivien-thomas"
name: "Vivien Thomas"
slug: "vivien-thomas"
description: "Vivien Theodore Thomas was an American laboratory supervisor who, in the 1940s, played a major role in developing a procedure now called the Blalock–Thomas–Taussig shunt used to treat blue baby syndrome along with surgeon Alfred Blalock and cardiologist Helen B. Taussig. He was the assistant to Blalock in Blalock's experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and later at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Thomas was unique in that he did not have any professional education or experience in a research laboratory; however, he served as supervisor of the surgical laboratories at Johns Hopkins for 35 years. In 1976, Johns Hopkins awarded him an honorary doctorate and named him an Instructor of Surgery for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Without any education past high school, Thomas rose above poverty to become a cardiac surgery pioneer and a teacher of operative techniques to many of the country's most prominent surgeons."
tagline: "American surgeon (1910-1985)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Vivien_Thomas.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Doctors"
  slug: "doctors"
profileType:
  name: "Doctor"
  slug: "doctor"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1910-08-29"
deathDate: "1985-11-26"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           54.28
  momentum:             0
  historical:           16.82134533333333
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  70
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: 230
sources:
  - url: "https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B6%AD%E7%B6%AD%E6%81%A9%C2%B7%E6%89%98%E9%A6%AC%E6%96%AF"
    title: "維維恩·托馬斯"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3"
    title: "فيفيان توماس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3"
    title: "فيفيان توماس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%DB%8C%D9%88%DB%8C%D9%86_%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3"
    title: "ویوین توماس"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%95%D7%95%D7%99%D7%90%D7%9F_%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%A1"
    title: "ויוויאן תומאס"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://jv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B4%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%99_%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%AA"
    title: "วิเวียน ทอมัส"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas"
    title: "Vivien Thomas"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q739020"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Imported from discovery source: wikidata-dump