Levi Watkins

Levi Watkins Jr. (June 13, 1944 – April 11, 2015) was an American heart surgeon and civil rights activist. On February 4, 1980, he and Vivien Thomas were the first to successfully implant an automatic defibrillator in a human patient at Johns Hopkins University. This took place only a mere seven months after Watkins completed his surgical education at Johns Hopkins. Today, millions of patients everywhere use this device, which detects irregular heart beats and corrects them.

Watkins was known to be a determined, passionate, and caring individual. He used this compassion to fuel his movement for minorities within the medical field. Today, people still use his wisdom and ideas based on civil rights activism to make medical schools more representative of the diversity of the human race. and Lillian Varnado (1917–2013). He grew up with five siblings: two brothers, James Watkins and Donald V. Watkins Sr., and three sisters, Doristine L. Minott, Emma Pearl McDonald and Annie Marie Garraway.

He was motivated to seek a career in the medical field by a Biology professor at Tennessee State University.

Medical career Watkins began his medical residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1971. There, he became chief resident of cardiac surgery, acting as the first African American chief resident at the university. Two years after his research on angiotensin blockers at Harvard, Watkins returned to Johns Hopkins and joined the admissions department in 1979. In 1980, he began his work on the defibrillator, which he improved upon during his time at Johns Hopkins. Watkins also used this time to enhance techniques for open heart surgery, many of which are still used today. The research work that Watkins completed during those two years at Harvard contributed to the safety and efficiency of the drug. His research clearly paid off, as this drug is still used today in patients that cannot tolerate ACE inhibitors to treat their congestive heart failure. A lecture series called the Levi Watkins Jr., M.D. Lecture on Diversity in Medical Education was named after him in 2002, and is held each year at Vanderbilt University. Students and faculty receive rewards based on their efforts in creating communities for minorities at the university. A plaque with his picture and description of his life is installed at The Marble Fountain in Patterson Park, in Baltimore. The Johns Hopkins Hospital renamed the Outpatient Center on the East Baltimore campus to the Levi Watkins Jr. Outpatient Center in June, 2023.

Today, much of his work is still represented in the field of medicine. Watkins contributed to the advancement of surgical techniques and to the defibrillator, which are all still used today. In addition, his work on angiotensin blockers has helped many patients in need of treatment for congestive heart failure, even those who are unable to tolerate other drugs.