Nation’s First Open-Heart Surgery

Daniel Hale Williams, a Northwestern University graduate who was one of the city's first black doctors, performed the country's first open-heart surgery. The revolutionary 1983 procedure allowed the patient to heal from a stabbing wound close to the heart in less than two months!

As he treated both black and white patients, Dr. Williams' practice expanded as he was recognized as a conscientious and talented surgeon. He was hired in 1889 to serve on the Illinois State Board of Health, which is now the Illinois Department of Public Health, where he dealt with hospital regulations and medical standards. Dr. Williams worked in a time when racism and discrimination made it impossible for African Americans to be admitted to hospitals and prevented black doctors from being hired as staff members. Dr. Williams established the Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses in Chicago, which is today known as Provident Hospital of Cook County, to combat this practice. This became the first hospital in the nation to hire African Americans for its nursing and intern programs. This hospital held the distinction of having an all-racial staff as the first medical facility.

One of the city's very first black doctors was Daniel Hale Williams. He earned his medical degree from Northwestern University in 1883. Along with this notable success, he carried out the first open-heart surgery in the US in 1893 in Chicago at Provident Hospital. The patient, a guy who had been stabbed close to the heart, was able to totally recover in two months as a result of Dr. Williams' procedure.