Write for Yourself

Warning: This post is too long but I can't help it.

About 5 years ago, I watched a PBS "American Experience" episode about a man named Vivien Thomas. Thomas was an African-American man working as a surgical tech at Vanderbilt and then at Johns Hopkins who developed a procedure used to treat a fatal heart condition in children called "Blue Baby Syndrome". Having planned on going to college, Vivien Thomas lost his savings with a bank failure during the Depression. Instead, this brilliant man...