Leading Medicine Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003

FATHER OF HEART CARE

DR. MICHAEL ELLIS DEBAKEY

by Emma V. Chambers

ASK MEMBERS OF GENERATION X WHAT M.A.S.H. MEANS TO THEM, AND THEY WILL PROBABLY SAY POTATOES. ASK ANYONE OVER 40, AND THEY WILL PROBABLY SAY HAWKEYE PIERCE OR TRAPPER JOHN, REFERRING TO CHARACTERS IN THE LONGRUNNING TELEVISION SHOW THAT DEPICTED LIFE IN A MOBILE ARMY SURGICAL HOSPITAL (M.A.S.H.) DURING THE KOREAN WAR. The comedy, which brought laughter and tears to millions of viewers the world over, was groundbreaking, and influenced the way people view physicians and nurses in times of war.

Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey, the man who played a key role in the creation of the real M.A.S.H., developed the hospital as a way of bringing emergency lifesaving surgery closer to critically wounded soldiers. M.A.S.H. units, located only minutes from the battlefield, significantly helped to lower the fatality rate for the wounded.

The M.A.S.H. is only one of many ways the world-renowned cardiovascular surgeon has advanced medicine. Pioneer, researcher, educator, statesman, creator, innovator and mentor all have been used to describe DeBakey, and he is so much more than all those words embody collectively.

DeBakey, who is recognized as the “Father of Heart Care,” has touched thousands of lives— students, patients, colleagues—in his 70-plus-year career. He invented the Dacron® graft, which revolutionized aneurysm repair, and performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy, establishing the field of surgical treatment for strokes. He also directed the world’s first multiple-organ transplants of a heart, one lung and both kidneys from one donor to four recipients. And the list goes on.

The Methodist Hospital is privileged to have been the home to DeBakey for more than 50 years. Methodist DeBakey Heart Center physicians continue the groundbreaking work begun by DeBakey and his associates, who developed many of today’s lifesaving techniques, tools and procedures. The most recent development, the MicroMed DeBakey VAD , a new generation of heart assist devices, was developed in collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine heart surgeon Dr. George Noon and NASA engineers. ®

This issue of Leading Medicine, dedicated to Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey, highlights some of the latest in world-class research, prevention, diagnostic care and surgery available at the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center.

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