Talk:Alfred Blalock

lead section edits
Alfred Blalock (April 5, 1899 – September 15, 1964) was a 20th-century American surgeon most noted for his research on the medical condition of shock and for the development of the Blalock-Taussig Shunt, a surgical procedure he developed together with surgical technician Vivien Thomas and pediatric cardiologist Helen Taussig to relieve the cyanosis from Tetralogy of Fallot—known commonly as the blue baby syndrome,[1] an operation that ushered in the modern era of cardiac surgery. Blalock worked at both Vanderbilt University and the Johns Hopkins University, in which he both studied as an undergrad and worked as chief of surgery. He is known as a medical pioneer and won various awards, including the Baltimore “Man of the year” in 1948. He was also nominated for the Nobel prize in medicine.

I propose adding more information about Blalock's life in the lead section apart from the blue baby syndrome operation, maybe with regards to his education and early life, as well as some awards that he won and was nominated for. This can give the reader a more general idea about Alfred Blalock both as a person and a professional, as well as his influences on the medical world. Rschwa99 (talk) 02:50, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Blue baby syndrome
Shouldn't the section on 'Blue Baby Syndrome' actually be located at, oh, I don't know, the Blue baby syndrome page? I suggest moving it. --Dcfleck 11:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. This article should be about Alfred Blalock, not the Blue Baby Syndrome. -X.qz 11:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

How did he die? The movie says nothing about it.. :(

He died from cancer. "Something the Lord Made" doesn't mention it, but it is briefly mentioned in the "Partners of the Heart" documentary which, to me, implied that Blalock retired because he was dying - see the section where he gives a his farewell speech to colleagues. This does make sense when one considers that Blalock died a few month after retiring. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woodcore (talk • contribs) 01:31, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The section with alternative capital and lower-case letters is a huge eyesore and does nothing to easily demonstrate the flow of blood in the heart.216.254.161.161 (talk) 16:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I came here to make the same comment about the overly detailed explanation of the Blue Baby Syndrome. Seeing that several others have made the same comment, I am going to transfer it to the Blue Baby article where it belongs. --MelanieN (talk) 18:41, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible Bibliography

Alfred Blalock : his life and times Longmire, William P. IN: Alfred Blalock : his life and times / 1991.

Alfred Blalock, April 5, 1899--September 15, 1964 Harvey, A. McGehee IN: Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 53, p. 49-81

The fundamental contributions of Alfred Blalock to the pathogenesis of shock Sabiston, D. C. IN: Archives of surgery Vol. 130, no. 7 (Jul. 1995) p. 736-737

A Black Technician and Blue Babies. By: Timmermans, Stefan. Social Studies of Science (Sage Publications, Ltd.). Apr2003, Vol. 33 Issue 2, p197-229. 33p. 2 Black and White Photographs, 1 Chart. Historical Period: 1930 to 1979.

Alfred Blalock. Surgeon, Educator, and Pioneer in Shock and Cardiac Research. Toledo-Pereyra, Luis H. "Alfred Blalock. Surgeon, Educator, and Pioneer in Shock and Cardiac Research." Journal of Investigative Surgery 18.4 (2005): 161-65. Catalyst at Johns Hopkins Libraries. Web. 10 Mar. 2015

'Technician' showed surgeon what to do Adviser: Vivien Thomas helped Dr. Alfred Blalock and Dr. Helen Taussig develop the 'blue baby' operation. Rasmussen, Fred. "'Technician' Showed Surgeon What to Do Adviser: Vivien Thomas Helped Dr. Alfred Blalock and Dr. Helen Taussig Develop the 'Blue Baby' Operation." The Baltimore Sun [Baltimore] 25 May 1997: n. pag. Print.

Centennial Presidential Perspective: Dr. Alfred Blalock Beaty, Claude A., Timothy J. George, and John V. Conte. “Centennial Presidential Perspective: Dr. Alfred Blalock.” The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery 143.2 (2012): 260–263. PMC. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. Historical perspectives of The American Association for Thoracic Surgery: Alfred Blalock (1899–1964) Beaty, Claude A., MD, Timothy J. George, MD, and John V. Conte, MD. "Historical Perspectives of The American Association for Thoracic Surgery: Alfred Blalock (1899–1964)." The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 143.2 (2011): 260-63. Science Direct. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/blbio.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/partners/legacy/l_colleagues_blalock.html

http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/blalock-alfred.pdf

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/stlm/history.html

https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/search/articles?utf8=✓&search_field=general&q=Alfred+Blalock

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/keyword/alfred-blalock

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4128896/

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022522311012347 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rschwa99 (talk • contribs) 04:12, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review Suggestions
Ahong11 (talk) 00:33, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the "Personal life" section could be moved towards the top of the article, maybe behind to the "Early life and career section." Further, those 2 sections (Personal life & Early life and career) could potentially become 2 subsections under a new large sections titled "Bibliography."
 * The "Vanderbilt University" section has a lot of information about Blalock and Vivien Thomas' work together. This information could be moved to a new section, possibly titled "Working with Thomas." The Vanderbilt University and Johns Hopkins sections could be moved into the "career" section in "Early life & career."
 * I think the "Recognition" section could be written in a format that is more clear. You could potentially rename the section to "Awards & Recognition" and list his recognition along with his various other achievements.
 * I'm a little confused as to what "Wider career" means. This section could have a better title.

Ways to Improve the Article
First of all, I think a picture of Blalock should be added to the page to give the reader a sense of what Blalock looks like and who he is. Also, I think the Johns Hopkins section is way to short compared to the Vanderbilt section considering Blalock spent much of his life at Hopkins, he was the chief of surgery there, and he gave arguably his greatest contribution to medicine at Hopkins. Although this article should mainly be about the life of Blalock and who he was as a man, I think it is important that the blue baby surgery has its own section and is properly detailed. The article mentions that Blalock was awarded several honorary degrees and that he was in several medical societies. I think that the article should just name a few of the most significant institutions and societies that he was a part of so the reader can understand his involvement in medicine and science. Also, considering all of the contributions Blalock made and all the awards that he has won, I think the recognition page should be more in-depth and should list more of the awards that he won in addition to the Lasker Award and the clinic that was named after him. Cstauch1 (talk) 21:31, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

The overall organization of the article is very well done. A picture would indeed be extremely useful and interesting Shackstanwick (talk) 15:29, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
Hi guys! Thanks for considering my previous suggestions! The article is coming together nicely. I just have one additional comment: I think you could add some more hyperlinks in the "Awards and Recognition" section. For instance, when you mention the "Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur," you could link it the Legion of Honour article. Overall, great work! Ahong11 (talk) 18:41, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Another Peer Review
Nice work so far. Some recommendations:
 * A new "Career" section should be created, and sub-sections for "Johns Hopkins" and "Vanderbilt" should be included there.
 * "References" and "Bibliography" should be combined.
 * "External links" need a description rather than just the web address.
 * Make sure only the first word and proper nouns of titles for sections and sub-sections are capitalized.

Good job! Jdeales1 (talk) 03:44, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

More peer review
Great job so far!! A few ideas...

I'm a little confused about the difference between "Bibliography" and "External Links", or should "Bibliography" be part of of references? Either way, I'm not sure that you need all three.

Maybe split up the "Early life and education" into a few paragraphs. Not necessarily subsections but I think its gets little tiresome to read as one long paragraph.

If you can, I think another picture would be nice.

Awesome job!!

LRoskes (talk) 16:10, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
Good info in this article. The "Early life and Education" and "Johns Hopkins" sections definitely need some sub-heading structure because there is a lot of info kind of jumbled together. I also think the order of headings seems a little mixed up. Make sure you want to put "Personal Life" after all of his career section. Maybe putting it closer to the "Early life and Education" would make more sense but its up to you (it's not too big of a deal). Good luck with the finishing touches! Rserafi2 (talk) 21:50, 4 May 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.220.159.83 (talk)

So many Peers
Hey, guys! You have done an awesome job with this article, which started off as good and is now, in my opinion, excellent. There's very few to recommend, but the info box says that it's being "considered for deletion"? Also, on the section on his personal life, I'd recommend merging the single sentences into a comprehensive paragraph. Aside from that, it looks awesome and there's really not much to change. (Amunizr1 (talk) 15:04, 5 May 2015 (UTC))

Peer Review
This article look really good! There is a lot of good information here. There is a lot of text, so perhaps you could break it up by adding a picture of Blalock performing surgery. Aflynn2 (talk) 17:56, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
You guys have done great work on this article! There is very little that needs to be improved. The only suggestion I have is to add more pictures. I think a picture of Blalock performing the the Blue Baby surgery would be neat. Good work! Devynbell114 (talk) 23:23, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
I think this article is very well done. Not only is the information sufficient, but the organization of the sections is well thought out.Shackstanwick (talk) 16:26, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer review
Overall i do not think there is much else to add and one of the things that I liked was that there is a section for Blalock as a mentor. Apatera517 (talk) 17:20, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
Looks great! The only thing really is structure there should be more sub sectioning and perhaps a medical career section of a biography heading then the appropriate sections as sub headings. Also in the information box there is a formatting issue with the Medical career row. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdoman1 (talk • contribs) 21:43, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
Solid article! Some things: Again, you guys did an amazing job on the article! Good balance of includng Thomas but not letting him overpower or create bias within this information. Aneekpatel (talk) 22:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I would change undergrad to undergraduate, just to be a bit more formal.
 * The Working with Vivien Thomas section seems to fit better as a part of the Vanderbilt section. Hierarchically, it doesn't completely make sense to make it its own thing.
 * "Nevertheless, Blalock excelled in surgical courses while he was a student at Hopkins, and this made him come to the realization that he wanted to be a surgeon." seems like it should be cited
 * It would be cool to dig up the names of some of Blalock's more notable students, just since he was known to be such a powerful mentor.
 * You may want to mention the significance of Thomas being hired as a janitor as opposed to a lab tech, just so that readers get that necessary grasp of the social context of the time.

Peer Review
The article is well thought out and detailed even to the extent of explaining how large of a mentor he was. To prove that it would be nice to see some factual evidence or some of his students speak out about their great mentor if there is any information out there. Besides the this article is very well put together as whole. Jtino55 (talk) 03:04, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
The structure of this article is very strong and not only organizing the information efficiently, but also makes the article to look more credible. I love the section "Working with Vivien Thomas" because their collaboration is very significant. One suggestion would be to add more pictures towards the bottom of the article (it is a little wordy). The ample amount of resources also shows that this is a credible article. Overall, great work on this article - there's not much to fix!! Cduke15 (talk) 04:03, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

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