Daniel Hale Williams (Dr)

Area of Achievement

Health and Medicine
Dr Daniel Hale Williams 1

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Dr Daniel Hale Williams opened the first interracial hospital in 1891 in Chicago’s South Side and taught anatomy at his old university, the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He also was one of the earliest adopters of the findings of Lister and Pasteur in the importance of sterilisation of hospitals. In 1893, he performed what would be the world’s first successful heart surgery on a patient who had been stabbed in the chest by successfully suturing their pericardium, the membranous sac enclosing the heart.
That same year, he created the Provident Hospital and Training school which had a racially integrated staff. In 1894, he moved to Washington DC and was appointed Chief Surgeon of the Freedman’s Hospital, which provided care for formerly enslaved African Americans. Whilst in this role, he helped to improve the surgical procedures and launched emergency ambulance services, while continuing his goal for the increase in Black medical professionals. In 1895, Williams created the National Medical Association, which allowed Black people to join

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