July 12th, 2008
End of the hero-doctor era
The death of Michael DeBakey, age 99, ends an era where doctors could, through their own will, change the nature of medicine and be seen as grand heroic figures.
He died just a few months short of his own centennial in September, and I guarantee the Texas Medical Center will hold a Texas-sized celebration of his life at that time. He defined the era he outlived.
(Shown is just a part of the TMC skyline, taken from Rice’s baseball field. Picture from the University of Central Missouri athletic department. Go Mules!)
DeBakey was a larger-than-life character who helped design the first M*A*S*H units, identified the link between smoking and lung cancer, pioneered heart surgery and, in part thanks to his talent for celebrity, transformed the TMC into the nation’s largest hospital complex.
He was, in short, a superstar, the Michael Jordan of surgeons. During his heyday, in the 1950s and 1960s, he was as well known as many Hollywood stars and politicians. Name a doctor (other than one practicing on TV) with that kind of fame today.
But all this had a cost, lifespan becoming a factor of finance rather than lifestyle. The rich and famous today are indeed different than us – they live longer.
At no time was this clearer than in 2005, when DeBakey was given an aortic transplant he really didn’t qualify for at age 97, because he was Michael DeBakey.
Thanks in part to DeBakey’s headline-raising prowess critical care medicine is now a big-money industry, driven far more by institutions and teams rather than individuals.
There can be no one like him again. Robots are taking over too much of surgery, and doing too fine a job of it. Besides, it would be too hard to rise above that skyline.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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