Dr. Michael DeBakey, Medical Trailblazer and Longtime Friend of NLM, Dies at 99
Dr. Michael DeBakey, who died Friday, July 11th of natural
causes, was one of the 20th century's great pioneers of
cardiovascular surgery. He was the chancellor emeritus of Baylor
College of Medicine in Houston, director of The Methodist DeBakey
Heart & Vascular Center, and senior attending surgeon of The
Methodist Hospital in Houston.
What many may not know about this celebrated figure (whom
medical historian Dr. Sherwin Nuland has said was, "without
question, the greatest surgeon of all time") was that he was also
one of National Library of Medicine's most stalwart supporters.
DeBakey played a pivotal role in the creation of the Library in
the 1950s and in the establishment of the National Network of
Libraries of Medicine in the 1960s. A visionary member and chair
of the NLM Board of Regents and several other NLM advisory
panels, the surgeon, innovator, medical educator and medical
statesman made countless contributions to the Library.
NLM Director Dr. Donald A.B. Lindberg, quoted in The Houston
Chronicle, July 13, 2008, observed, "It's an overused phrase, but
Dr. DeBakey was truly a Renaissance man of medicine. He knew how
to ask the most basic, common-sensical questions that got to the
heart of a matter, and he saw the whole picture." "The heart of
the matter" is the perfect choice of words.
One of only a handful of surgeons to become well-known to an
international audience, DeBakey performed more than 60,000
operations, and routine procedures such as bypass surgery owe
much to his example. He also invented and improved a series of
devices now routinely used in the treatment of heart
patients. These included artificial hearts, heart pumps to assist
those waiting for transplants, and more than 50 instruments,
including the DeBakey clamps and the DeBakey forceps used by
vascular surgeons around the world. But the Dacron graft, used to
treat diseased arteries, remains his greatest innovation,
according to medical historians. These grafts are used to repair
aneurysms, or ballooning, in all parts of the aorta and are now
part of standard treatment.
This inventor and innovator earned a reputation as the
greatest surgeon alive when he was just 35, but his curiosity and
considerable skills had him making important contributions to
medicine well into the 21st century. As his reputation grew, so
did the list of famous people who sought his advice and services.
Among them were the Duke of Windsor, the Shah of Iran, King
Hussein of Jordan, Boris Yeltsin, and Presidents Kennedy, Johnson
and Nixon.
Michael Ellis DeBakey (originally "Debaghi," but later
Anglicized) was born September 7, 1908, in Lake Charles,
Louisiana. One of five children of Lebanese immigrants, he
attributed his surgical skills to his mother, who had taught him
to sew and knit. He earned a science degree from Tulane
University in New Orleans and, in 1932, received an MD degree
from the Tulane University School of Medicine. From 1935 to 1937,
DeBakey studied in Europe, at Strasbourg and Heidelberg
universities, before returning to Tulane to teach surgery.
Late in life, he recalled that, in 1932, the year the finished
medical school, "there was virtually nothing you could do for
heart disease. If a patient came in with a heart attack, it was
up to God." This was unacceptable to the creative young surgeon
and, that same year, he developed a roller pump that would become
an important component of heart-lung machines used in open heart
surgery, fulfilling the function of the heart by supplying
oxygenated blood to the brain.
That extraordinary gift for innovation (often against the
prevailing medical wisdom of the day) was to become
characteristic of Dr. DeBakey's career. He was among the first to
recognize the importance of blood banks and transfusions, and to
publicize a link between smoking and lung cancer. He also
developed the mobile army surgical hospital or MASH unit, created
a follow-up system for veterans' health problems which evolved
into the Veterans Affairs hospital system, and chartered the
National Library of Medicine.
A chronology of Dr. DeBakey's involvement with NLM and its
antecedents follows:
- In the 1940s, during World War II, Dr. DeBakey spent many
hours in the Army Medical Library, located on Independence
Avenue, on the National Mall. Researching military medical
matters required by his duties in the Army Surgeon General's
Office, he was dismayed by the deplorable physical conditions:
the lighting was bad, the roof leaked, etc. He was especially
concerned about the deterioration of the collection.
- After the war, it became clear that, if the collection was to
get the attention it deserved, the library should be transferred
from the military to the civilian sphere. "From the point of view
of the military command," Dr. DeBakey noted, "the library had
minuscule significance by comparison with a tank, battleship, or
airplane."
- In the decade following the war, Michael DeBakey was involved
with a number of Congressional committees, task forces, and, most
notably, the Second Hoover Commission. He was persuasive with
influential advisors and worked with Senators Lister Hill and
John F. Kennedy. Eventually, in 1956, the Congress created the
National Library of Medicine by transferring the Armed Forces
Medical Library into the Department of Health Education and
Welfare. Before this could happen, however, DeBakey had to pull
some strings.
- Dr. DeBakey thought the library should be near government
researchers in Bethesda, but James A. Shannon, the NIH director
at the time, did not agree. Dr. DeBakey convinced him otherwise
by asking Dr. Shannon how he started his pioneering kidney
research at New York University. By reading in the library, Dr.
Shannon replied.
- That wasn't the end of the story. The American Medical
Association wanted the library built next to its headquarters in
Chicago. With little public interest in the issue, House Speaker
Sam Rayburn of Texas held up the bill backing the Bethesda site,
which was sponsored by Senator Lister Hill of Alabama. (NLM's
research and development facility, the Lister Hill Center, NIH
Building 38A, now bears his name.) In a strategic masterstroke,
Dr. DeBakey contacted the secretary of the national Democratic
Party, Dorothy Vredenberg. DeBakey had once operated on her
husband and he called in his marker, to ask for her help. The
next day, she told DeBakey that Mr. Rayburn would let the bill
through.
- Dr. DeBakey was a member (and elected chair) of the founding
Board of Regents (1956).
- He chaired President Johnson's Commission on Heart Disease,
Cancer and Stroke. One outcome from that influential body was the
passage of the Medical Library Assistance Act and the creation of
a Regional Medical Library Network (1965), now known as the
National Network of Libraries of Medicine.
- High on Dr. DeBakey's list of achievements is a Houston high
school he helped start in 1983 for students (mostly minorities)
seeking health care careers. The school is now named for him, and
NLM has worked closely with it through the years, sponsoring
special programs in Texas and bringing students and teachers to
the NIH campus. Using Dr. DeBakey's model, NLM has recently
sponsored programs in cities, to interest high schoolers in
careers in health and medicine.
- Dr. DeBakey was a member of the original Long Range Planning
Panel for Building and Organizing the Library's Collection
(1986).
- Michael DeBakey was a tireless advocate for NLM in the public
press and made several Public Service Announcements (PSAs) as
part of its outreach efforts to the public. In 1987, he wrote an
article about the Library in Readers' Digest, which had a
circulation of 16 million at the time.
- He chaired the Outreach Long Range Planning Panel whose 1989
report (Improving Health Professionals' Access to Information)
still influences NLM's public information and outreach
activities.
- Dr. DeBakey was appointed to another term on the Board of
Regents, from 1994 to 1998. Again, he served a term as
chair.
- Over the years, Michael DeBakey repeatedly testified
before Congress on behalf of NLM and its programs. In 1997, he
told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and
Human Services about the potential benefits of offering free
access to MEDLINE via the Web. He secured their support for NLM
providing that service. In that testimony, the visionary man of
medicine also recommended that the Library broaden the scope of
its databases to include authoritative health information
intended for the public, thus laying the foundation for
MedlinePlus.
- NLM hosted a 90th birthday party for Dr. DeBakey in
1998. Before a throng of well wishers, he was presented with a
brick from the old Army Medical Library and honored with
thunderous applause.
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