DeBakey Medical Foundation Supports Endowed Scholarship Fund for Baylor
University Medical Humanities Students
Baylor News Online
July 14, 2009
Baylor University announced today a $500,000 gift from the DeBakey Medical
Foundation, establishing the Michael E. DeBakey, Selma DeBakey and Lois DeBakey
Endowed Scholarship Fund in Medical Humanities at Baylor University. The scholarship
will allow recipients, who will be designated as DeBakey Scholars, to continue the legacy
of a family that has revolutionized the field of medicine in many ways.
"I would like to thank the DeBakey Medical Foundation for its generous gift to our
students. Medical humanities, an undergraduate program unique to Baylor and just a few
other universities, was created to foster the kind of intellectually mature, reflective and
informed physicians and scholars that the DeBakey family represents," said Dr. Michael
Attas, associate director of the medical humanities program and Waco cardiologist.
"They have contributed a legacy to American medical education that represents
everything our students should aspire to -- strong writing skills, cultural awareness,
dedication to the intersection of the humanities and the sciences, awareness of the role of
community in the practice of medicine and a recognition of the role of spiritual formation
in the life of the well-rounded physician."
"The DeBakey Medical Foundation is pleased to present this grant to Baylor University
in support of this exceptional program," said Gale Galloway, BBA '52, a DeBakey
Foundation trustee. "I can think of no greater honor for a student than to be named 'a
DeBakey Scholar.'"
The DeBakey Medical Foundation's gift supports Baylor students pursuing studies in
medical humanities, a relatively new program at Baylor that incorporates the insights of
disciplines ranging from literature to economics to religion into the practice of modern
scientific medicine.
By providing a broad base of knowledge about the human experience, the medical
humanities program produces students with the scientific background as well as the
human understanding that will result in physicians able to care for their patients' wellbeing in addition to their wellness.
These are traits that Dr. Michael E. DeBakey himself valued. As his sisters, Selma and
Lois DeBakey, once wrote, "always a voracious reader, he was conversant in history,
religion, philosophy, literature, poetry, global cultures and policies and more. He was the
leading spokesman of the medical profession and a fervent patient advocate."
In a career that spanned seven decades, DeBakey has been acclaimed as a founder of
cardiovascular surgery and a true Renaissance man. Because of his work, once
impossible life-saving procedures, such as coronary artery bypass, now are common
operations. As a result of his World War II military service, he helped develop Mobile
Army Surgical Hospitals to accommodate the wounded more quickly, and he later helped
establish the Veteran's Administration Medical Center Research System.
In addition, DeBakey worked with his sisters to pioneer a new discipline, medical
communications education. Lois and Selma DeBakey are both professors of scientific
communication at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and they developed a
curriculum to teach doctors to think, read and write critically, and to express their ideas in
clear, concise and cohesive language. Recognizing the importance of effective
communication with patients as well as the medical community, the DeBakey family
sought to fill the void.
DeBakey joined the faculty of Baylor University College of Medicine (now the Baylor
College of Medicine) in 1948, serving as chairman of the Department of Surgery until
1993. He was president of the College from 1969-1979, then served as chancellor from
1979 until January 1996, when he was named Chancellor Emeritus. He was also the Olga
Keith Wiess Professor of Surgery and Distinguished Service Professor in the Michael E.
DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, and he served as
Director of the DeBakey Heart Center for research and public education at Baylor
College of Medicine and the Methodist Hospital.
A few months before he died in 2008, DeBakey received the Congressional Gold Medal,
rounding out his collection of some of the most significant awards an American citizen
can receive, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, the National
Medal of Science and the prestigious Lasker Research Award.
Before being recruited by Baylor College of Medicine in 1968, Selma DeBakey was the
founding director of the Editorial Department of the Ochsner Clinic and Foundation in
New Orleans and the founding editor of the Cardiovascular Research Center Bulletin,
Ochsner Clinic Reports and guest editor of a number of peer-reviewed medical journals.
Lois DeBakey was professor of scientific communication at Tulane Medical School when
she was recruited by Baylor. Earlier, she was Editor of Tulane Studies in English.
Together, the DeBakey sisters pioneered the teaching of biomedical communication and
conducted the first medical school curriculum-approved courses in this subject; they have
since conducted courses by invitation of major medical school and meetings throughout
the United States and abroad. They have published numerous medical books, chapters
and articles on writing, editing, publishing, visual supplements, ethics and related
subjects. Their publications are considered classics and have been translated into a
number of foreign languages.
Selma DeBakey received the Distinguished Service Award of the American Medical
Writers Association and, with Lois, has served on the boards of various other
professional organizations. Lois was named Distinguished Alumna by her alma mater,
Newcomb College.
They have also served on various editorial boards, including those of the Journal of the
American Medical Association and the Methodist DeBakey Cardiovascular Journal, as
well as on the Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center Advisory Council,
National Library of Medicine Board of Regents, American Heritage Dictionary Usage
Panel and consultants to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica Medical and Health Database.
"The DeBakey family truly represents the best of our nation's wonderful heritage of
medicine, and we feel that our students will be privileged and honored to be able to
receive a scholarship given in their name," Attas said. "As it was my personal privilege to
meet Dr. Michael DeBakey in my formative years in medicine, I feel deeply that the kind
of students whom we will honor with the scholarship will serve well the legacy of his life
and the remarkable body of work of Selma and Lois DeBakey. Our students will be
blessed and honored to receive these funds, and we are truly thankful."
The DeBakey scholarship will benefit juniors and seniors pursuing a major or minor in
Medical Humanities.