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Daniel Hale Williams
Surgeon who performed the first successful open-heart surgery
When a stabbed man arrived with a torn pericardium, he opened the chest and sewed — because no textbook said he could.
The rise
Born to a free Black family in Pennsylvania, Williams apprenticed with a surgeon before attending Chicago Medical College. In 1891, he founded Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in America and a training ground for Black nurses and doctors.