Something the Lord Made, Essay Example

Do you think Vivien Thomas was treated unfairly? Unethically? How is credit normally assigned to scientists and assistants today? Do you think he would be treated differently today?

The film “something the Lord made” tells a story of a 34-year-old partnership that begins when Dr.Blalock hires Thomas as an assistant in his laboratory. Although Thomas was expected to perform merely janitorial work, his scientific acumen surprised Blalock expectation, and He started to allow him to carry out other more complicated roles. With time and under his coaching Thomas become an indispensable research assistant. The yield of their collaboration is enormous, as they together pioneered the first heart surgery.  Due to the role that he plays, Thomas magnificent skills earns Dr. Blalock praise, and he refers to his skill as like something the Lord made. However, his praise does not go beyond the wall of his laboratory.

The ethic of scientific community requires that those who make essential contributions should be credited.  However, Dr. Blalock never fully acknowledged the contribution of his assistance. He claims the results of his assistance creativity as his own. Thus, I believe Thomas was unfairly and unethically treated. In his defense, Dr. Blalock explained that the society was not ready to treat Thomas as equal to white doctors. Another factor that perhaps made Thomas not to be credited is fact that, until 1955, sole authorship was the predominant tradition in science.

In today’s world, in order to qualify for authorship for medical paper, an author must fulfill the following three criteria

1. must have made substantial contribution to the conceptual and design of the study or acquisition or interpretation of the data
2. drafted the study manuscript or critically revised it for important intellectual content
3. Give final approval of the version to be printed.

Thomas was a key contributor in both the surgical and scientific basis as he did much of the fundamental studies by himself in Dr. Blalock’s lab. In fact during the blue baby surgery procedure Thomas stood behind DR. Blalock to provide advice. Therefore, Thomas fulfills all three criteria above and I believed he deserved some professional credit. If it were today, Thomas would have received some credit as second, third or fourth authorship.