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【medical-news】美心脏外科医生获得最高公众服务
Heart surgeon pioneer wins highest civilian honor
A Congressional Gold Medal has been awarded to Michael E. DeBakey, MD, whose medical career spans 60 years.
A physician renowned for healing hearts over generations and transforming the face of cardiovascular medicine has reached new heights.
Cardiovascular surgeon and medical innovator Michael E. DeBakey, MD, received the Congressional Gold Medal on April 23 for his long list of contributions to medicine.
The 99-year-old Houston doctor is known for many firsts: pioneering aortocoronary bypass surgery, the artificial heart and heart transplants; establishing the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or MASH, units; and helping to create what is known today as the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs health care system.
"For nearly a hundred years, our country has been blessed with the endless talents and dedication of Dr. Michael DeBakey. And he has dedicated his career to a truly noble ambition -- bettering the life of his fellow man," President Bush said as he bestowed the honor upon Dr. DeBakey at the U.S. Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C. Bush signed the bill authorizing the award -- the highest a civilian can receive -- last October.
Dr. DeBakey expressed his gratitude and thanked Congress for its support of medical research. "My cup runneth over," he said at the ceremony.
Through the years, he advised former U.S. presidents and ran in circles with other international heads of state. Dr. DeBakey consulted on former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's quintuple bypass surgery in 1996. The Baylor College of Medicine Chancellor Emeritus and senior attending surgeon at The Methodist Hospital in Houston also helped create the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health and other research institutions that bear his name.
In 1959, the American Medical Association gave Dr. DeBakey the AMA's Distinguished Service Award, which is granted for meritorious service in the science and art of medicine. The honor followed such accomplishments as the invention of the roller pump and the first patch-graft angioplasty.
"From the development of procedures to diagnosing to training the personnel, he's been able to affect medical care around the world," said cardiovascular surgeon George Noon, MD, a long-time colleague and former student of Dr. DeBakey's.
A voice in medicine
Dr. Noon, surgical director of the heart transplant program at The Methodist Hospital and professor of surgery at Baylor, said his partner approached clinical practice and research with purpose and initiative.
"When Dr. DeBakey spoke, everybody listened. I listened, too," said Dr. Noon, who has worked with Dr. DeBakey for 40 years.
"He's a perfectionist and expects everyone around him to do the same," Dr. Noon said.
Although he was a "tough taskmaster," patient care always came first for Dr. DeBakey, said cardiothoracic surgeon Michael Reardon, MD, who trained under Dr. DeBakey at Baylor and has worked with him for 30 years.
"When I was getting ready to live in the ICU and worried about being the only guy responsible, I found out quickly that if you did what you were supposed to do, and you were honest and forthright, you didn't get into trouble," said Dr. Reardon, chief of cardiac surgery at The Methodist Hospital.
Dr. DeBakey "is always willing to go against the grain to help other people," he said, recounting an anecdote handed down during the surgeon's 60-year career at Methodist.
In the early 1960s -- before the hospital was integrated -- Dr. DeBakey offered to operate on a black man with an aortic aneurysm at a time when few, if any, specialists were available to treat the condition. When some of the hospital staff resisted, Dr. DeBakey pushed for changes in the bylaws that allowed him to perform surgery on the Chicago man and led to the hospital's desegregation.
Four decades later, the Library of Congress-designated "Living Legend" still works to find new ways to improve patient care. Several months ago, Dr. DeBakey sat in on grand rounds, after which he called a meeting with the team of artificial-heart specialists to discuss fresh ideas he had, Dr. Reardon said.
Dr. DeBakey, still hard at work, was unavailable to talk for this story. He was attending a conference at the Michael E. DeBakey International Surgical Society in Houston.
Making history
Highlights of Dr. DeBakey's career.
1928: Entered medical school at Tulane University, New Orleans
1932: Developed roller pump used in heart-lung machine
1945: Awarded Legion of Merit for developing Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) units
1948: Began work at The Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston
1953: Performed first removal of carotid artery blockage
1956: Performed first patch-graft angioplasty
1960: Began development of artificial heart
1964: Performed first aortocoronary artery bypass
1968: Performed first heart transplants
1978: Established the Michael E. DeBakey Center for Biomedical Education and Research
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作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2010-10-03 17:11
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