He also spearheaded a campaign that raised $30 million to eliminate the school's debt. A foundation he created still contributes $2 million a year to the school.
About the same time, he played a key role in the formation of a new Houston high school designed to attract youths, particularly ethnic and racial minorities, into medical professions. The school is now known as the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions.
He installed his wife and family in a modest house five minutes from Baylor and lived there for the rest of his life.
"If I go home after operating and I've lost a patient that day on the operating table, it's hard for me to sleep that night," he said. "I keep thinking about what I could have done or what I might have done to stop it. Only time gradually eases the pain."
His greatest pain came in 1972, when his wife, Diana, died of a heart attack while he was in surgery. Three years later, he married a German movie actress, Katrin Fehlhaber. Their daughter, Olga, was born in 1977 when he was 68.
On New Year's Eve 2005, when he was 97, DeBakey diagnosed a sharp pain in his upper chest as a torn aorta. Home alone, he did not call for help and, when his wife returned, told her that he had pulled a muscle. Dubious, she called two of his colleagues and he was hospitalized.
Although he initially resisted it because of his age, the surgeons ultimately performed the operation DeBakey had pioneered, installing a Dacron graft to repair the torn aorta in a seven-hour operation. After a month in intensive care, he ultimately recovered and resumed his busy schedule of writing and travel.
Among his other honors, DeBakey received the Lasker Award for Clinical Research, the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, the National Medal of Science and, in April, the Congressional Gold Medal.
In addition to his wife and daughter, DeBakey is survived by two of four sons from his first marriage, Michael and Denis; eight grandchildren; and two sisters.
--
thomas.maugh@latimes.com
