Medical pioneer buried at Arlington cemetery

Tag : Medicine Material

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates lowered ontoone knee to present the flag from the coffin of medical innovatorDr. Michael DeBakey to his widow, Katrin, at Arlington NationalCemetery on Friday.
The presence of Gates and Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake atthe burial reflected DeBakey's pre-eminence but couldn't burnish aname already immortalized as a brilliant saver of lives.
He "viewed death as a personal enemy," said presiding ChaplainHarry Rauch III.
As a young boy, DeBakey devoured a set of the EncyclopediaBritannica, and he grew into a cardiovascular surgeon who inventedso many medical devices, procedures, tools and concepts that hebecame an encyclopedia entry himself.
DeBakey pioneered such now-common procedures as the heart bypass,helped bring about open-heart surgery, developed artificial heartsand pumps and created more than 70 surgical instruments.
He died last Friday in Houston at the age of 99.
His World War II service entitled him to be buried in ArlingtonNational Cemetery, but his grave is not among those of medicaldoctors. That area is full.
DeBakey was buried in plot 399-A, Section 34, an area where Gen.John J. Pershing and Ira Hayes, one of the Iwo Jima flag raisers,also lie. His nearest neighbor is World War II veteran and BronzeStar winner Edward Curtis Franklin, who died in 1958 at age 43.
The burial site seemed fitting for a man whose work helped deliverlifesaving surgeries to the war front and whose research on thecare of returning war veterans helped bring about creation of theVA.
The lives of many of the hundreds of thousands buried at Arlingtonwere cut short in battle, but a number of other veterans theresurely benefited from DeBakey's innovations. Among his own patientswere presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.
The sun glinted off the medals of a Marine as he handed to Gatesthe American flag folded with a precision DeBakey would haveappreciated. "In life he honored the flag," Rauch said. "In deaththe flag honors him."
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On the Net: Arlington National Cemetery: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org
Baylor College of Medicine: http://www.bcm.edu
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