Levi Watkins Jr. pioneering Hopkins cardiac surgeon and civil rights activist, dies at 70

Levi Watkins Jr., a pioneer in both cardiac surgery and civil rights who implanted the first automatic heart defibrillator in a patient and was instrumental in recruiting minority students to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, died Saturday of complications from a stroke. He was 70.

Watkins came to Johns Hopkins in 1970 as a general surgery intern and retired in 2013 after serving as an exemplary surgeon and inspirational leader for 43 years.

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