Dr. Daniel Hale Williams

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams

1856 - 1931

 

 

 Dr. Daniel Hale Williams is a rare exception to the Catholic Heroes series  in that while he was baptized a Catholic on his deathbed, he did live the life of a true Man of the Beatitudes in his service, mission and fight against prejudice and racism.

Apprenticed as a shoemaker, young Daniel disliked the work and was drawn to the field of medicine by the influence of a respected physician in Janesville, Wisconsin where the family moved after the death of his father.

Williams graduated from Chicago Medical College in 1883 at a time when very few Black physicians were allowed to practice or operate, especially on white patients. When he had had enough of Black people denied decent health care and surgery at Chicago’s finest hospitals, Dr. Williams opened his own hospital, Provident, which was the first quality hospital to accept patients of all colors but the first to begin a training program for African American doctors and nurses. Provident developed an excellent reputation and survives to this day after it merged with Cook County Hospital.

In 1893, Dr. Williams made history when he performed (at Provident) the first successful open-heart surgery on a human being. The patient, James Cornish, a victim of a stab wound to the pericardium, survived. Because of the prejudice against Blacks and disapproval of surgeons of color, the historic achievement was downplayed and buried for years. 

Dr. Williams moved from founding all Black hospitals to encouraging interracial staffing and he was made a member of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Williams was baptized a Catholic on his deathbed in 1931, buried out of St. Anselm’s and he left a tremendous amount of money to Fr. Augustus Tolton’s church, St. Elizabeth.