If you were a heart surgeon, would you operate on this patient?
\n\u2022 He is 97 years old
\n\u2022 He will certainly die in the next few days if you do not operate
\n\u2022 He invented the surgical procedure that he now needs, more than 40 years ago
\n\u2022 He did research that has saved millions of lives
\n\u2022 He has done more than 70,000 surgeries
\n\u2022 He is the most famous surgeon in the world<\/p>\n
The Surgery<\/strong> DeBakey became the oldest patient ever to undergo this procedure. The surgery took seven hours and he spent the next eight months recovering in the hospital at a cost of more than a million dollars. In September 2006, he left the hospital and went back to working on scientific papers. Two years later, at age 99, he died from heart failure at the same hospital. The surgery had added two more productive years to his incredibly productive life. <\/p>\n
\nOn December 31, 2005, at age 97, Dr. Michael DeBakey suffered an aortic dissection. That means that the inner lining of the artery leading from his heart had separated from its outer wall and he was about to die because it would bleed profusely or it would block the outflow of blood from his heart. He was already unconscious and close to death. The most famous heart surgical team in the world decided to operate, and the Houston Methodist Hospital Ethics Committee approved the operation. However, the Baylor anesthesiologists, who were the most experienced team in the world for putting patients to sleep for open-heart surgery, refused to put him to sleep because he was 97 years old, so the surgical team had to bring in anesthesiologists from another hospital. <\/p>\n