Northwestern University honors the legacy of 'Dr. Dan: America's first open-heart surgeon

Ebony, Dec, 2004 by Zondra Hughes

MORE than 111 years after Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful open-heart surgery, his alma mater, Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago, celebrated his legacy by dedicating an auditorium and atrium in his honor.

A distinguished gathering of alumni, faculty, business and community leaders, including John H. Johnson, publisher and chairman of Johnson Publishing Company, and Eunice W. Johnson, secretary-treasurer and producer-director of the Ebony Fashion Fair, attended the Chicago dedication in honor of the pioneering surgeon who was known to his friends and colleagues as "Dr. Dan."

Speakers said Dr. Williams' operation changed the landscape of modern medicine and bemoaned the fact that he is not better known.

Referring to Dr. Williams as "one of the most illustrious alumnus of the medical school, a man who truly deserves a prominent place at Northwestern," Dr. Lewis Landsberg, dean and vice president for medical affairs of the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, encouraged all to explore and revisit Dr. Williams' life.

"Dr. Dan was a master surgeon, a wonderful teacher and in many ways one of the most accomplished leaders in American medicine at the turn of the 20th century," he said. "He was a leader in the broadest sense of the word. He brought real change for the better for the people he interacted with. He set a lasting example for many others."

The keynote speaker, Claude H. Organ Jr., M.D., president of the American College of Surgeons, said Dr. Dan was a medical pioneer who created paths for others.

"He was a thoughtful surgeon who made significant contributions to quality health care and medical care and nursing education," says Dr. Organ. "In addition to the sensational care that he gave his patients, he also laid out the groundwork for a lot of [historically Black] hospitals, and that's a major contribution."

Dr. Organ also urged the audience to continue Dr. Williams' legacy by supporting African-American medical schools.

Today the legacy of Dr. Dan is etched in stone for all to see in the brand new Daniel Hale Williams Auditorium and Atrium, part of a $35 million renovation that was recently completed at the university. The state-of-the-art, 182-seat auditorium and atrium features displays that highlight Dr. Williams' life as a surgeon, educator and health administrator, and students are greeted by a large sculptured bust of "Dr. Dan" by Preston Jackson, a professor of sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dr. Thomas Pitts, Chicago internist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern, called for a rededication to the ideal of determination and excellence that informed the surgeon's life.

Eloquent testimony on that ideal is emblazoned on the paneled wall of the atrium that cites the advice the legendary Frederick Douglass offered to Dr. Williams, his longtime friend:

"There is only one way you can succeed and that is to override the obstacles in your way by the power that is within you. Do what you hope to do."

Because he dared to do what he hoped and dreamed, Dr. Dan extended the limits of the possible and made men and women who have never heard his name his debtors and disciples.

Dr. Dan's Historic Day

Around 7:30 p.m. on July 9, 1893, there was a barroom brawl in a Chicago inn, and one of the patrons savagely thrust a knife into the chest of James Cornish, who was rushed to Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses, the country's first interracial hospital and nursing school.

There was no X-ray technology back then and the chief surgeon, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, decided at first that the wound was superficial and that the best thing to do was to keep the 24-year-old patient under observation.

But when Cornish went into shock, the surgeon suspected that there was a deeper wound closer to the heart. Traditional medicine warned at that time against performing open-chest surgery. The prevailing fear was that opening the chest would result in lung damage (or lung collapse) and certain death.

But the doctor and his patient faced a cruel dilemma. For the patient might die if he was operated on, but he would almost certainly die if he was not operated on. So Dr. Williams, a bold and brilliant surgeon with ice water in his veins, decided to operate.

Dr. Williams asked two Black doctors and four White doctors to observe while he operated on Cornish.

First, Dr. Williams administered anesthesia, then he made an incision and cautiously exposed the breastbone and inspected the injury between two ribs. Next, he carefully cut the rib cartilage and created a tiny trapdoor to the heart.

Delicately and against great odds, since Cornish's heart was still beating and a blood transfusion was impossible, the surgeon held the edges of the still-pulsating wound together with forceps as he sewed them together.

Cornish left the hospital 51 days later and lived for another 20 years.

Dr. Williams' landmark operation made him a medical icon.