26/02/2026
In 2018, Dean Prof Joseph Sung, while on a 3-month sabbatical at the Baylor College of Medicine and Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, learnt about one particularly memorable person:
Dr Michael DeBakey.
Dr DeBakey is a pioneer in the field of cardiovascular surgery, inventor of the classification system for aortic dissection, as well as the man who developed the surgery to treat it.
On New Year’s Eve, 2005, the man himself suffered an aortic dissection but refused treatment knowing how it would affect his 97-year-old body. The following 3 weeks, his condition was monitored and he was eventually admitted into hospital. When his condition did not improve, he fell into a coma.
What followed was one of the most extraordinary medical ethics debates in modern history. His wife, Katrin, and long-time colleague Dr George Noon pressed for surgery. The hospital’s anaesthesiologists, the most experienced cardiac anaesthesia team in the world, refused to participate, citing Dr DeBakey’s Do-Not-Resuscitate order. The ethics committee convened, asking this staggering question: do you honour the explicit wishes of a patient, or do you operate on the unconscious inventor of the very procedure that could save him?
How do you answer such questions? Do you respect the patient’s will, or exercise your professional judgement? Read more about what Prof Sung has learnt in this Dean’s Blog.
Read More: https://www.ntu.edu.sg/medicine/news-events/dean's-blog/dr-michael-debakey-and-his-dissecting-aneurysm
Photo: Baylor College of Medicine
