"I proposed to the surgeon general that we make mobile teams out of the personnel at these hospitals and call them auxiliary surgical units -- they could be moved where needed," he told the Journal of the American Medical Assn. "We put them in every army, and they were a tremendous success."
He also advocated specialized medical and surgical follow-up systems for military veterans, a program that eventually became the Veterans Affairs healthcare system.
He returned to Tulane in 1947, but left a year later to join the Hoover Commission, which was reorganizing the executive branch of the government. While there, he often spent time at the Army's medical library -- then considered the finest medical library in the nation, despite the fact that it had leaky ceilings and outhouses instead of toilets.
He proposed building a new library but soon learned that the Army was more interested in tanks and guns. "And that triggered in my mind that it didn't belong in the Army -- it was a natural treasure," he said.
It was eventually constructed in Bethesda, Md.
Later that year, the Baylor University School of Medicine, as it was then known, tried to get DeBakey to join its faculty, but he turned down the offer twice. "They didn't have any clinical service. They had no hospital. They had no residents, no training program in surgery," he told the Houston Chronicle.
He ultimately accepted when the university promised him a 20-bed surgical service at Hermann Hospital and a free hand as chief of surgery. He quickly became unpopular.
One of his first controversies involved a rule he announced stating that physicians with no training in surgery could not operate at Baylor-affiliated hospitals. "No one who is unqualified to do good operations should be allowed to operate," he said.
He was also unpopular with the Harris County Medical Society in Houston because of his new ideas -- including the creation of intensive care units at Baylor, establishing new training guidelines for surgeons and admitting black patients -- and his frequent appearances in the local newspapers, something that was then against the society's rules. When the society tried to eject him, he hired attorney Leon Jaworski, who stopped the proceedings with a single letter.
After 20 years as chief of surgery, he became the school's chief executive at a time when it was near bankruptcy. One of his first actions was to sever it from Baylor so that it could accept federal funds for research.
