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Biography · Medicine & Health

Levi Watkins

1944–2015

United States

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Biography

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.

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Biography text · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

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