John Walter Vincent Cordice, Jr. (June 16, 1919 – December 29, 2013) was an American doctor and surgeon who is most notable for operating on Martin Luther King Jr. to save his life after a 1958 assassination attempt.
[4] While in the Army, he spent a year in France, where he assisted in that country's first open heart surgery.
[4] Cordice worked at Harlem Hospital for forty years,[3][8] rising to the position of chief of thoracic surgery.
On September 20, 1958,[9] Martin Luther King Jr. was attacked with a paper knife by Izola Curry.
Cordice, along with doctors Aubre Maynard,[10] Farrow Allen and Emil Naclerio, were called in to operate.