Cooley & DeBakey - Rivalry of Cardiac Surgery Titans

Dr. Denton Cooley and Late Dr Michael DeBakey were all time world's great surgeons in the field of cardiac surgery. Their achievements have taken cardiac surgery into uncharted waters and their accolades are a result of saving many lives. During their careers, they shared a feud like no other, a rift so well known that it made the cover of Life Magazine. The story of their rivalry (lasting 40 years) played out like a Hollywood script with one trying to outdo the other, amid accusations of theft and betrayal in true Hollywood fashion.

Dr. Denton Cooley (August 22, 1920 - ) is a pioneer of heart surgery. He performed the USA's first successful human heart transplant in 1968, and in 1969 he became the first heart surgeon to implant an artificial heart in a human. He and his team have performed more than 100,000 open-heart operations, which is more than any other group in the world. His accolades include countless other achievements in the world of cardiac surgery and numerous awards have been bestowed upon him, including the prestigious National Medal of Honour and National Medal of Technology. It is said that once a lawyer had asked Dr. Cooley, during a trial, if he considered himself the best heart surgeon in the world.

“Yes,” he replied.

The lawyer then asked “Don’t you think that’s being rather immodest?” Dr. Cooley responded. “Perhaps, but remember I’m under oath.”

In 1951 Denton Cooley joined Baylor University College of Medicine and here began his collaboration with Michael DeBakey. This pair up led to many innovations in surgery but their differences or some would call it ‘rivalry’, led them to drift apart and in 1960 Cooley moved his practice away from DeBakey’s. The feud escalated when in 1969 Cooley performed the first artificial heart transplant. The recipient was a dying man and with no donor heart available, Cooley took it upon himself to implant an artificial heart with the help of Dr. Domingo Liotta, DeBakey’s artificial heart technician, who is said to have designed the artificial heart. The patient survived for 65 hours following the transplant. DeBakey is reported to have called the Cooley’s actions of using the artificial heart as theft, unethical, a betrayal and a childish act to claim a medical first.  Denton Cooley however, defended the implant as a desperate act to save a life and felt that DeBakey was concerned simply because Cooley became credited for implanting the first artificial heart.  Dr. Cooley is currently Surgeon-in-chief and President-emeritus at the Texas Heart Institute and one interesting fact that many may not be aware of, is that he played string bass in ‘the Heartbeats’, a musical band consisting of prominent physicians at the Texas heart institute. They had even released a record as a fundraiser (not to be confused with the 1950s rhythm and blues band, with the same name).

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An original handwritten letter from Cardiac Surgery's pioneer, Dr. Denton Cooley, personally written to Dr. Farhan Asrar

Dr. Michael DeBakey (September 7, 1908 – July 11, 2008) Another great pioneer of cardiac surgery, Dr. DeBakey has a long list of notable milestones; He is said to have performed tens of thousands of operations over 70 years with exceptional skill, operating on world leaders including John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Boris Yeltsin, The Duke of Windsor, the late King Hussein of Jordan and the Shah of Iran. He also invented the US Army's surgical field hospitals, popularly known as the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (M*A*S*H), made famous due to the television series of the same name. He helped establish the Veterans Administration chain of hospitals to care for retired soldiers and also helped to form the US National Library of Medicine. DeBakey was one of the first to perform coronary artery bypass surgery, the first successful carotid endarterectomy, the first patch-graft angioplasty and was the first to use an external heart pump successfully in a patient. Dr. DeBakey was very actively involved in medicine even up till recent years until his death. He has had many awards and honours bestowed upon him, the most recent being the Congressional Gold Medal just few months before his death. In 2008, Dr. Michael DeBakey passed away from natural causes at the age of 99, just two months short of his 100th birthday.

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An autographed photograph of Dr. Michael DeBakey from Dr. Farhan Asrar's private collection.

The Feud finally comes to an end

The well known feud between DeBakey and Cooley following the issue of the artificial heart continued for decades with both individuals reportedly not talking to each other for years (The New York Times reported in 1994 that both had refused to talk to the other for 25 years).

In 2007, they set aside their differences and Michael DeBakey accepted a lifetime achievement award and honorary membership from the ‘Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society’ in October 2007, handed to him by Denton Cooley himself.

Shortly after, in May 2008, Denton Cooley was made honorary member of the ‘Michael E. DeBakey International Surgical Society’ and presented with a lifetime achievement award by Michael DeBakey. At the ceremony, DeBakey remembered the early days, when he and Cooley worked together at the Baylor College of Medicine and said “We were the department of Surgery”.

It was reported that Dr. DeBakey’s motto was ‘Strive for nothing less than excellence’ and that was how both DeBakey and Cooley lived their lives and made an impact in Medicine.

Reference:
Altman, Lawrence. The Feud. *New York Times* November 27, 2007.

By Dr. Farhan M. Asrar