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. Vanderbilt University even has a lecture series held annually in his honor, in order to discuss the importance of inclusivity within the university.