Let’s raise a glass to the African-American medical pioneers who changed the world

Daniel Hale Williams

In 1893, Daniel Hale Williams, an African-American cardiologist, became the first surgeon to perform a successful open-heart procedure in the United States. Known as “the father of black surgery”, William’s surgery became a significant feat in medical history and an important step in the fight for equality at the time, since he was one of the few black cardiologists in the US at the time. Born on January 18, 1858, in the small town of Hollidaysburg in central Pennsylvania, Williams was a barber apprentice, before settling in Wisconsin, where he graduated high school and later an academy by the age of 21.

His interest in medicine began in 1878 when he became a medical apprentice under a renowned surgeon, Dr. Henry Palmer. Enrolling in the Chicago Medical College, where he received a Doctor of Medicine degree, he would found the Provident Hospital and Nursing Training School in 1891, where the first successful open-heart surgery was performed. Williams’ surgery got him widely acknowledged by many. A year after the surgery, he got appointed as Chief Surgeon at Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., where doctors from all over the world, came to witness his operations.