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Dr. Michael DeBakey, Father
of Cardiac Surgery,
Dies at 99
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July
12,
2008 --
Considered the father of cardiac
surgery, and by many the world's greatest surgeon, Michael E. DeBakey
passed away on Friday night in Houston, just two months shy of his
100th birthday. Born in 1908 in Lake Charles, Louisiana to Lebanese-Christian
immigrants, DeBakey invented numerous surgical procedures and techniques,
as
well as a host of devices that revolutionized vascular and cardiac
surgery.
Michael
E. DeBakey, MD, FACS |
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DeBakey served
his country in World War II, and is credited with creating
Auxiliary Surgical
Hospitals (ASH) -- as he said in a 1995 interview, "Not
M.A.S.H. -- the 'M' was added later, during the Korean War."
The results of having surgical units close to the battlefield
revolutionized the treatment of vascular repair and led to
a significant reduction in amputations. As DeBakey said,
prior to then, "Vascular repair was not very successful.
It wasn't successful because it wasn't tried very much." |
Credited with training thousands of surgeons, he not only pioneered
the science and technique of surgery, but the training, education
and accreditation of the entire field. He dined with General Patton
during World War II, aided John F. Kennedy in establishing Medicare,
and operated on a host of celebrities, from Marlene Dietrich to
Boris Yeltsin to the Duke of Windsor. He established Baylor College
of Medicine as a major center of training, and Houston as one of
the great medical centers in the world.
His
invention of the roller-pump in the thirties ultimately made
heart bypass surgery possible. Along with other vascular surgeons,
he continued to look for a way to repair the blood vessels
of the human body, something that could not be done at that
time.
Ultimately DeBakey was successful in devising an artificial
graft made
of Dacron. First performed in a human in 1954, this technique
for repair
of an aortic aneurysm literally saved his own life
in
2006,
making
him the
oldest
patient to
undergo
the procedure.
In this video clip, DeBakey tells the story of how he created
that first graft, and how his mother's teachings were critical
in that discovery.
The clip is from the documentary, "Vascular
Pioneers: Evolution of a Specialty", produced by Angioplasty.Org
and is part of a wide-ranging interview conducted in 1995
with DeBakey by his former student
and renowned surgeon in his own right, Dr. F. William Blaisdell. |
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Video not loaded
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In this 1995
interview, Dr. DeBakey tells how he made the first
successful
prosthetic graft
for repair
of an
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm,
from the documentary,
"
Vascular Pioneers:
Evolution of a Specialty"
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Reported by Burt Cohen, July 12, 2008 |
