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Michael DeBakey, Consummate Medical Geek, Dead At 99
NIckGorton writes "Dr. Michael DeBakey, the father of modern heart surgery, died this week at age 99. He was integral to the development of pretty much everything in modern cardiovascular surgery: bypass (heart-lung machines that made open-heart surgery possible for the first time), coronary artery bypass surgery (he did the first one ever), carotid endarterectomey (again he performed the first one), the development of Dacron graft blood vessels, and the development of MASH units. He was a consummate geek and numerous surgical instruments bear his name. He was also the first surgeon to videotape surgeries — in the 1960s. He was considered by the NEJM to be the single greatest surgeon alive until two days ago. In his career he performed over 50,000 heart surgeries and practiced medicine (though not surgery) until the day he died. In 2005 he underwent the Debakey procedure, which he pioneered, to treat the aortic dissection he suffered."
So the proof isn't in the link. So what?
He begged his parents to convince the library to let him check out the Encyclopedia Brittanica. He was a kid. His parents bought him a set, which he read, cover to cover, start to finish.
He was fascinated with medicine. His father was a pharmacist, and when other kids his age were obsessing over the usual stuff - musicians, athletes, girls - he was plotting his course as a doctor - a detailed course: exactly what classes he'd take, where he'd go to college, how he'd get his degrees.
He studied so hard that he finished his doctorate at the same time as his bachelor's. As a doctor, he completely immersed himself in his work and research as a doctor. Medicine was his job, his career, his hobby and his pastime. He loved the trivial details of his field to the point where he berated peers who didn't share the same appreciation (and, later, fired employees who cut sutures too long.)
He worked 12-hour days because he wanted to, and he did it for 75 years because he wanted to.
Here's a test: Enter an argument with the biggest ______ geek you can find about the best ______ in that topic. Take up a contrary argument and see how riled up s/he gets. Amplify it a few magnitudes and that's how DeBakey was about cardiology. Until maybe the last two years of his life, that's how he was with anything involving medicine.
(Speaking of those last two years: he had them because he underwent a surgical procedure he developed himself some 30 years prior. Reusing old work to save his own life? Check. ;) )
He was a wetware hacker in 1932, inventing the key component of the heart-lung pump - the device that enables open-heart surgery - as a 23-year-old college student. He hacked Dacron into artificial arteries using his wife's sewing machine. He invented one of the earliest artificial hearts and pioneered transplant science - all before the influences of computers, small-scale fabrication, simulation.
Intellectual pursuit of trivia at the expense of social grace? Aggressive top-dog behavior among his peers, instinctual shyness outside of his element? A constant desire to tinker, to create, to improvise?
Anyone, anyone, anyone who worked with DeBakey and knows the definition of the term "geek" would happily - and honorably - apply it to him, and strive to meet it. If anyone deserved it as an honorific, it's DeBakey. Consummate indeed, and we should all work to be half as deserving of the title in our fields.
- former Baylor med student
â Opposing view: He was also a decorated Army vet. He was a graceful statesman for medicine and public advocate for education. He was rarely out of shape, even when illness confined him to a wheelchair in his last months. He enjoyed media attention and had a large, active group of friends.
He also married a hot actress half his age and drove a sports car to work every day until he couldn't drive himself anymore â" about age 96. But if you had his money and fame, hell, wouldn't you?