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The life and times of Dr. Michael E. DeBakey
An acclaimed researcher and author, DeBakey published more than 1,400 medical articles, chapters and books. Photo circa 1992
The world came to DR.MICHAEL E.DEBAKEY
During his illustrious 60-year career in Houston, people knew how to find Dr. Michael E. DeBakey. Letters arrived from across the city and around the globe; some simply addressed “Dr. Michael DeBakey, Houston, Texas.” And they usually found him. After DeBakey died on July 11, people came to him once again. Quietly and reverently,they filed past his flag-draped casket in Houston’s City Hall, the first time any person had been so honored in the city. They came in the midday heat to a downtown cathedral —the powerful, the wealthy and the working man sitting together to honor a great healer of hearts. At The Methodist Hospital, where this most famous of all surgeons performed many of his miracles, people were drawn to the lobby where an imposing bronze bust of DeBakey stands. There, they placed flowers and cards and wrote their thoughts and condolenceson the pages of a small memory book.
SHARON MOORE DALLAS, TX*
Two doctors — Quynh Mai, a pediatrician, and her husband Phan The My, an obstetrician/gynecologist, came from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, on vacation. When they learned of DeBakey’s passing while visiting a relative in Houston, they asked the relative to take them to The Methodist Hospital.
Houstonian Earline Hargrove saw the flowers near DeBakey’s statue and mourned the surgeon. Her husband Willie has heart problems and received a ventricular assist device and eventually, a heart transplant. On one visit to Methodist, they recognized and spoke briefly with DeBakey, who encouraged Willie to get treatment and take care of himself.
In the days after his death, it seemed as if everyone knew of DeBakey. People could recite many of his accomplishments; they knew he invented medical devices and surgical instruments, created the M.A.S.H. wartime hospitals and pioneered heart bypass procedures.
And for every person who traveled to the lobby of The Methodist Hospital or to the cathedral and City Hall, there were many more who could not come physically, but they came in spirit, making a virtual pilgrimage to honor the man who repaired their hearts and touched their lives.
It was commonplace for DeBakey to have observers in the operating room. Photo date unknown
Hope from the Newspaper
In 1961, Louise Grathwohl was worried about her husband, George. As a child, he twice had rheumatic fever, which damaged his heart. He tried to enlist in the Air Force during World War II but was not accepted because of his heart condition. Sixteen years after he and Louise married, they and their three childrenmoved to the Florida Keys where he operated a charter fishing boat business.
Grathwohl could see her husband growing weaker by the day. “The doctors in Florida told us there was nothing more they could do,” she recalls. Then, one Sunday morning she turned to a magazine story in the Miami Herald. “There were three pages on this miracle worker in Texas,” she says, “Dr. Michael DeBakey.”
Why not take a chance and write to him, she thought. She did — and about a week later, a telephone call came from Houston. “A secretary said, ‘Dr. DeBakey wants you to come, and we will do whatever we can for your husband,’” Louise says. “I told them we would have to make financial arrangements. … the secretary said, ‘Don’t worry.’”
They borrowed money for plane tickets and flew to Houston. The DeBakey team replaced two heart valves in George Grathwohl and afterward, the great doctor walked down the hall to where Louise was waiting.
She remembers DeBakey kneeling next to her and talking in his soft voice. “People immediately fell silent when he walked down the hall,” she says.
After five weeks in the hospital, the Grathwohls went back to Florida. Daughter Georgia Grathwohl was only seven years
old, but she remembers her father resuming a full life after his surgery.
“He was vigorous; he worked and won fishing tournaments. My father had a great life after that first surgery,” she says. Seven years later George had a second surgery. He died in 1973.
“I guess to some, those nine years might not seem like a long time. But they made all the difference for me,” says Georgia, now Georgia Dardick. Her mother Louise, now 86, adds, “Dr. Michael DeBakey gave my husband his life back, and that was a miracle.”
Like Louise Grathwohl, Helen Halbison put a loved one’s fate in the hands of DeBakey. In 1978, she took her 18-month-old son Mark to Methodist.He was born with a heart murmur and doctors later discovered he had a hole in his heart. The cardiologist at Methodist told Halbison her son would require surgery.
It was almost a surprise to Halbison when DeBakey appeared at the door of the waiting room. “He was very quiet. … he walked right up and kneeled down, took both of my hands and said my son was going to be fine,” she says. “He was very confident, very gentle, and I never saw him again.”
Today Halbison’s son, Mark Busey, is a healthy, 33-year-old working in Houston. “Not a day goes by that I don’t thank the Lord for Michael DeBakey,” Halbison says.
Former newscaster and talk show host Phil Donahue (center) visits with DeBakey and one of his colleagues. Photo date unknown “When he walked into my room, a peace came over me, and I knew that I would be OK. He took my hand and told me, ‘Ms. Austin, you are going to be OK,’ and somehow I knew this to be true. I am not anyone famous just another person. But to Dr. DeBakey, I was treated like royalty.”
WANDA J. AUSTIN HOUSTON, TX*
DeBakey with President Lyndon Baines Johnson. The 36th President of the United States appointed DeBakey chairman of the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke. Photo 1964
A Father’s Concern
In the summer of 1962, Myra Woodley was a 12 year old with a serious cold. The family doctor, Dr. Charles Fellows of Sulphur, LA, ordered a chest X-ray to check for pneumonia. He found a lemon-sized cyst on Woodley’s heart, pressing against her lung and esophagus.
*Quotes from Honoring Dr. Michael E. DeBakey blog. To read more tributes or to leave your own, visit debakey.mymethodistblog.com.
Her father, who worked at an oil refinery, got off work and drove immediately to the doctor’s office. He asked the physician, who had five daughters of his own, “If this were one of your daughters, what would you do?”
“I was a pale, frail little girl,” Myra Woodley Nunnally recalls. “Apparentlythe cyst was pushing on vital organs and affecting my health. But my daddy came home that day and said Dr. Fellows recommended Dr. Michael DeBakey in Houston.”
At Methodist, she recalls being in a ward with three other girls about the same age. “I was terrified, mainly of the unknown. But Dr. DeBakey came in to talk with me. … he sat on the edge of the bed and told me in a soothing voice what kind of surgery I was about to receive,” she says. “I wasn’t afraid anymore. … he put me completely at ease.”
Woodley recalls being impressed — later, as a teenager — that DeBakey took care to make the incision under her right arm, so it would not be conspicuous.
“Dr. DeBakey was not only an amazing surgeon, but he also was a downto-earth, humble man,” she says. The sixth-grader wrote a letter to the surgeon and told him she was doing well. “I received a nice reply and he requested an occasional update. That is a letter I’ll always treasure.”
Five years later, in the same month as her surgery, Woodley encountered DeBakey once more. She was traveling to Europe with family, and her aunt spotted him in the airport.
“He had just flown to Lake Charles from Houston to visit his family who still lived here. He not only remembered me and my family, but he also knew the details of my case,” she recalls. “We were all stunned that he recalled so much about a surgery he performed five years prior. He smiled that lovely smile of his and seemed genuinely glad to see I was doing well.”
Woodley toured Europe and came back to graduate high school and attend Louisiana State University, where she met and married her college sweetheart. They have been married 36 years and have
MOHAN KOPPISETTY, HYDERABAD, INDIA*
DeBakey, actor Hugh O’Brien (left) and Texas Medical Center President Dr. Richard Wainerdi visit with members of the Hugh O’Brien Leadership Youth (HOBY). More than 1,500 HOBY members were in Houston for their World Leadership Congress. Photo 1986
President George W. Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid present the Congressional Gold Medal to DeBakey during a ceremony Wednesday, April 23, 2008, at the U.S. Capitol. White House photo by Chris Greenberg
two daughters and a son — and two grandchildren. “I think Dr. DeBakey would be proud of they way my life turned out,” she says, “thanks in large part, to him.”
Hill of Heroes
Under a sunny July sky, World War II veteran Dr. Michael E. DeBakey was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Family and friends were joined graveside by the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
He is interred among heroes — close by are World War I Commander Gen. John J. Pershing and Ira Hayes, who raised the flag on Iwo Jima.
From humble beginnings in Louisiana, DeBakey became a surgeon that many people consider to be the world’s greatest. From the surgeries he performed on the front lines of war, to the medical miracles he created at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, DeBakey’s greatest accomplishments are surely the lives he saved.
Some of them, their children or their grandchildren may one day seek out the great Dr. Michael E. DeBakey. They will go to tell him how they might not be here if not for his work and dedication.
And they will find him on a small, quiet hill — finally at rest among this nation’s greatest heroes.
DeBakey and Dr. Antonio Gotto Jr. (now dean of Weill Cornell Medical College) pose for a photo to promote “The Living Heart Diet,” a book on nutrition and health penned by the two along with dietitians Lynne Scott and John Foreyt. Photo 1985
