MICHAEL DEBAKEYAmerican heart surgeon Michael Ellis DeBakey, who died on July 11, 2008, was renowned as an innovator in the field of cardiovascular medicine and regarded as an international medical statesman.He was the chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, director of The Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Centre as well as the senior attending surgeon at The Methodist Hospital in Houston.Dr DeBakey was born Michel Debaghi on 7 September, 1908, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. His parents, Shaker and Raheeja, were Lebanese immigrants.In 1932 Dr Debakey graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans with his degree in medicine. He remained in New Orleans to complete his internship and residency at Charity Hospital.From here he journeyed to Europe to complete surgical fellowships at the University of Strasbourg, France, and the University of Heidelberg, Germany.Returning to America he served on the surgical staff at Tulane Medical School between 1937 and 1948. From 1942 to 1946 he was on military leave and served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, helping to revolutionize wartime medicine by supporting the proposal to position doctors and surgeons closer to the frontline.In 1948 Dr DeBakey joined the staff of Baylor University College of Medicine. He served as the Chairman of the Department of Surgery, a post which he held until 1993.He gained the reputation as a respected medical statesman through his ability to influence public policy through a high degree of professional knowledge and integrity. He was held in high regard by the US Government, advising the Hoover Commission on medical issues and became chairman of the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke during the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson.Dr DeBakey was rightly considered to be a medical pioneer. At the age of 23, while still at medical school, he invented the ‘roller pump’. This invention would take on a great deal of medical significance in later years when it became a crucial component of the heart-lung machine.In 1939 he made tentative links between smoking and the likelihood of cancer. He was also one of the first to perform coronary artery bypass surgery. In 1953 he performed the first ever carotid endarterectomy. He pioneered the artificial heart and was the first to use an external heart pump on a patient.Dr DeBakey also pioneered the use of Dacron grafts to repair and replace damaged blood vessels. In 1958 he performed the first ever successful patch-graft angioplasty. This procedure is now used throughout the international medical world.During his career, lasting almost 75 years, he operated on more than 50,000 patients including several famous politicians and heads of states. Famously, in 1996, he supervised Russian surgeons as they performed quintuple bypass surgery on President Boris Yeltsin.As a doctor he was honored several times over - however his career was not without controversy. In 1987 and 1990, Dr DeBakey was investigated by the Texas Medical Board for the number of malpractice complaints. Both investigations were dismissed but in 1994 his Texas medical license was revoked for nonpayment.In December 2005 Dr DeBakey suffered an aortic dissection. Years before, he had pioneered a surgical procedure to cope with this condition with became known as the DeBakey Procedure. He was taken to The Methodist Hospital in Houston where he initially declined surgery but as his condition deteriorated there was little choice but to proceed with surgery.Due to his age, the decision to operate was seen as controversial, but on February 9, 2006, Dr DeBakey became the oldest patient to undergo the surgery for which he himself had become renowned.The operation took seven hours and post operation complications meant DeBakey remained in hospital for eight months. However, when he was released in September 2006 he had returned to what was considered good health and fitness. He was well enough to attend the opening of the Michael E. DeBakey Library and Museum at Baylor College of Medicine in October 2006.Dr DeBakey recalled much later in life how different things had been when he started as a doctor. Referring to 1932, the year he graduated from medical school, he said: "There was virtually nothing you could do for heart disease. If a patient came in with a heart attack, it was up to God."Dr DeBakey died at the age of 99 from natural causes at The Methodist Hospital in Houston.Before his own death he lost his first wife, Diana Cooper DeBakey, who died of a heart attack in 1972 as well as his sons, Ernest O. Debakey in 2004, and Barry E. DeBakey in 2007. Dr DeBakey was survived by his second wife Katrin, his daughter Olga and sons Michael and Denis as well as his sisters Lois and Selma.
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