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Reconciliation for DeBakey and Cooley
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New York, NY - The New York Times has today run a long article on the reconciliation of cardiac surgeons Drs Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley [[Ссылки доступны только зарегистрированным пользователям ]].
The two surgeons, who had been colleagues and friends since 1951, fell out in 1969, when Cooley implanted the first artificial heart in a human patient in St Luke's Hospital, Houston, TX; the heart was said to be identical to one under development by DeBakey at Baylor. DeBakey has called that first-ever use of a total artificial heart a theft, a betrayal, unethical, and "a childish act" to claim a medical first, but Cooley defended the implant as a desperate, if ultimately unsuccessful, act to save a life, New York Times journalist Lawrence Altman reports. The two surgeons have not spoken since, until recently.
The article notes that DeBakey, now 99, and Cooley, now 87, take very different views of the rift, with Cooley calling the short distance between their operating rooms "a demilitarized zone," and DeBakey denying that there even was a feud.
Altman gives much background information surrounding the events of 1969. He says that how Cooley obtained the artificial heart is not clear but that he performed the operation with help from DeBakey's artificial-heart technician, Dr Domingo Liotta, who was said to have been frustrated by the limited time that he contended DeBakey put into the project. The device kept the patient alive for three days, longer than any animal in which it had been implanted. The article reports that DeBakey, who had never sought approval to use the device in a patient, refused to testify in the litigation that followed, saying in a recent interview: "Much as I regretted what he did, I didn't think vengeance would solve anything."
Even after their reconciliation last month, DeBakey said that Cooley had "disappointed me with his ethics" and "poor judgment" in doing the implant, which was "a little childish," while Cooley still claims he was justified in what he did, saying he was performing more heart operations each year than DeBakey or anyone else and so was "the appropriate person to do the first implantation of an artificial heart," Altman writes. The article notes that Cooley recalled that a lawyer had once asked him during a trial if he considered himself the best heart surgeon in the world. He replied that, yes, he was. "Don't you think that's being rather immodest?" the lawyer asked. "Perhaps," Cooley responded. "But remember, I'm under oath." Cooley also suggested that patriotism had also played a part: "It just sounds a little bit supercilious," but "I did not want the Russians to beat us, as they had with Sputnik," he is reported as saying.


Cooley gives DeBakey lifetime achievement award
But Altman reports that the two surgeons now appear to be reconciled, as they shook hands and made jovial comments when DeBakey accepted a lifetime achievement award from the Denton A Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society last month. DeBakey had a few days earlier received a Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest and most distinguished civilian honor, and Cooley said: "It must be a heavy burden, for one person to be honored by a Congressional Gold Medal and membership in the Cooley Society all in one week." DeBakey responded that since the Congressional Medal was pure gold, he assumed the Cooley award was the same, and Cooley replied with a chuckle that his was 14 karat, the New York Times article notes. There was no mention of the artificial-heart episode.
DeBakey is reported to have accepted the Cooley award because "it just seemed to be a very kind thing that they did, and I should also be kind and accept it graciously." Cooley is quoted as saying: "The feud's over, but I don't anticipate that Dr DeBakey and I will be warm close friends henceforth." Cooley is said to have told DeBakey he regretted that they had become so distant and hoped that the "temporary truce or cease-fire" they had reached would become permanent. And DeBakey is reported to have described Cooley as "one of the best cardiovascular surgeons" he had ever seen.