Michael DeBakey dies at 99

–Houston Chronicle, ‘Dr. Michael DeBakey: 1908-2008 — ‘Greatest surgeon of the 20th century’ dies’: ‘Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey, internationally acclaimed as the father of modern cardiovascular surgery – and considered by many to be the greatest surgeon ever – died Friday night at The Methodist Hospital in Houston. He was 99. Methodist officials said DeBakey died of natural causes. They gave no additional details.

‘Medical statesman, chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine, and a surgeon at The Methodist Hospital since 1949, DeBakey trained thousands of surgeons over several generations, achieving legendary status decades before his death. During his career, he estimated he had performed more than 60,000 operations. His patients included the famous – Russian President Boris Yeltsin and movie actress Marlene Dietrich among them – and the uncelebrated.’

DeBakey was an amazing pioneer in surgery. In 1938, he and his mentor, Alton Ochsner, published an article on the drainage of subphrenic abscess, a surgical plague in the days before antibiotics. Patients with perforated appendicitis were kept in the hospital for weeks in “Fowler’s position,” to avoid the dreaded complication of subphrenic abscess. Fowler’s position, inadequately explained in that Wikipedia article, was a seated position in bed to allow pus to drain into the pelvis where it could be drained through the rectum or, in females, through the vagina. Before DeBakey’s and Ochner’s article, the approach to a subphrenic abscess, above the liver and below the diaphragm, was extremely dangerous. It was also common because lying flat in bed tended to allow pus to flow up to the space above the liver. They found that the space could be drained through an approach through the 11th rib. It was easy and effective in the days before antibiotics made subphrenic abscess rare. He should be famous for that alone. The rest of his career will be covered extensively by others but I fear his first great contribution may be ignored. He was a great man.

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