<Tr> <Th> Fields </Th> <Td> Cardiology </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Institutions </Th> <Td> Provident Hospital Meharry Medical College Freedman's Hospital St. Lukes Hospital Cook County Hospital </Td> </Tr> <P> Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856--August 4, 1931) was an African - American general surgeon, who in 1893 performed the first documented, successful pericardium surgery in the United States to repair a wound . He founded Chicago's Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States, and also founded an associated nursing school for African Americans . </P> <P> The heart surgery at Provident, which his patient survived for the next twenty years, is referred to as "the first successful heart surgery" by Encyclopedia Britannica . In 1913, Williams was elected as the only African - American charter member of the American College of Surgeons . </P>

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