I of course had heard of Dr. Michael DeBakey and Dr. Denton Cooley back in the 1950s while in medical school at Southwestern, but on graduation in 1955, I was drafted into the armed forces and lost contact with what was happening in Houston over the next 3 years.
While stationed at an Air Force hospital in Paris, France, I decided to apply for a residency in surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. I was encouraged to do this by a young lady I had met while in Paris—a nurse anesthetist who was giving anesthesia for Drs. DeBakey and Cooley. She was so inspired by their pioneering work in cardiovascular surgery that she told me this was the place to go if I wanted to be a surgeon.
So I applied, and in November 1957 I received a letter signed personally by Dr. DeBakey, advising me that I had been accepted. The following July 1958, I arrived in Houston, knowing absolutely nothing about Drs. DeBakey and Cooley and the Baylor College of Medicine, other than their phenomenal reputation. As it happened, I was one of the first surgical residents in the Baylor program, when Dr. DeBakey was chairman of the department of surgery and Dr. Cooley was vice-chairman.
Those residency years were exceedingly demanding, and I felt sleep deprived much of the time. The surgical experiences were unmatched anywhere, either in volume or in variety. When I finished, I felt that I could handle competently any surgical condition with which I might be confronted.
It took many years thereafter, however, for me to completely recover from the emotional and physical strain and to really appreciate the incredible opportunity that I had been given right there at the beginning of the modern era of cardiovascular surgery. Once I began to reflect on that, I understood and appreciated the daring and relentless work that these 2 unique surgeons were doing. I moved on to establish my practice in west Texas, and only later in my career did I reconnect with Dr. DeBakey and then with Dr. Cooley.
When a medical school was established in Lubbock at Texas Tech University, I served as founding chair of the department of surgery, and Dr. DeBakey was the first person I consulted on how to start up a surgical department in a new medical school. His advice and counsel was invaluable.
Later on, both Dr. DeBakey and Dr. Cooley were good enough to come to Lubbock to serve as keynote speakers for surgical seminars, and they gave valuable support as we started up our open-heart surgical program at Covenant in 1970.
One of the highlights of my career has been the establishment of the Covenant Heart Institute/Michael E. DeBakey Distinguished Lectureship Series, to bring the latest developments in the cardiovascular field to the people of west Texas. Dr. DeBakey gave the inaugural address in 2004, and each year thereafter I brought in one of the world's most outstanding surgeons: 2005, Wayne Isom, New York City; 2006, George Noon, Houston; 2007, John Ochsner, New Orleans; 2008, Ted Diethrich, Phoenix; 2009; Ken Mattox, Houston; 2010, Denton Cooley, Houston; 2011, Bud Frazier, Houston; and 2012, Joe Coselli, Houston.
I had wanted to invite Dr. Cooley earlier in the series but was reluctant to ask him, because of his distant relationship with Dr. DeBakey over many years. Shortly after Dr. Cooley reconciled with Dr. DeBakey in 2007, I asked him if he would consider being our distinguished lecturer. He readily and graciously accepted, and presented a marvelous paper on his 65 years of surgical experience (most of them at the Texas Heart Institute).
I had the opportunity to visit with Drs. Cooley and DeBakey at the latter's ceremony in Washington, DC, when he received the Congressional Gold Medal. Later on, as President of the DeBakey International Surgical Society, I had the great pleasure to work with Drs. Cooley, Coselli, and Mattox as we developed the combined meeting of the Cooley and DeBakey Surgical Societies in 2012, carrying forward the reconciliation and bonding of these 2 giants of the 20th century.
Without their even knowing it, Dr. Denton A. Cooley and Dr. Michael E. DeBakey have had a profound impact on my professional life throughout my career. From them I learned what perfection, excellence, and perseverance really mean. And above all else, service to one's fellow man.