Friday, August 31, 2007

Today in Donation History

Just found out that today is the 39th anniversary of the first multi-organ multiple transplant. You can go here to Wired! for the story. The 5 teams, involving 60 surgeons, nurses and assorted personel(we're gonna need a bigger OR) was coordinated by Dr. DeBakey. Yes, that Dr. DeBakey, as in "pass me the DeBakey." Here's a look at his remarkable career. Another interesting bio is here. The man invented a continuous flow rolling pump in med school, in between studying I guess, that later was instrumental in developing the heart/lung machine. That was just the first in a long line of medical inventions. Dr. DeBakey, by the way, is still on faculty at Baylor.

The surgery, which took place on August 31, 1968, recovered a heart, one lung and kidneys that were transplanted into 4 people at one hospital.

2 comments:

rlbates said...

I have always been in awe of Dr Michael DeBakey! Thanks for the links to his bios.

Just Me said...

Wow, that is really interesting! Thanks for sharing :o) Sounds like your job is giving you new challenges, but allowing you some more time off (I just had 10 days off by taking 3 days vacation...gotta love those 12-hour shifts!).