Submitted by Bobba_fat t3_ycjsn2 in todayilearned
Doing an aorta surgery on a 97 year old has a huge mortality risk. It's like throwing a hail mary pass. You're a god if it works, but no one's mad if it flops lifelessly on the ground.
I was telling my wife yesterday that we should basically say no extreme measures to keep people alive past 85 years old unless they specifically say otherwise.
Then she was like so you want the 90 year old dancing her booty off for her birthday at the drag show to just give up if she dies?
Yes, literally yes, or we can break all her ribs, put a trach and a peg in her, and watch her be a vegetable for the last 5 years of her life instead of letting our last memories of her being the cool old lady that can still shake it with the drag queens at 90.
It gets worse. There's an extremely common surgical tool he designed and popularised called DeBakey's forceps which were undoubtedly used during the procedure.
I love DeBakeys
It was a trainee of DeBakey that performed the surgery
Trainee is still 100x smarter than me!
My grandfather was the second person DeBakey installed an aortic graft on. DeBakey sewed the graft on his sewing machine at home then had it sterilized. He flew my grandparents to Dallas from El Paso to do the surgery. My grandfather lived another ten years. Dr DeBakey corresponded with my grandmother over the years checking on Mac (my grandfather.) Amazing surgeon, but seemed genuine also. If you work in medicine you know that’s uncommon.
Wow that’s cool asf. If this is true, this is why I actually love Reddit sometimes.
The first successful operation to save a patient with aortic dissection was performed in 1954. One of the surgeons, Michael DeBakey, developed over many years the technique of replacing the damaged aorta with a tube made of polyethylene terephthalate. He himself suffered aortic dissection at the age of 97 and survived for two years thanks to the technique he developed himself.
I've seen the sewing machine he used to make those prototypes. I used to work at Baylor College of Medicine in the DeBakey surgery department. There is a whole section of a museum there dedicated to him and his accomplishments. Pretty cool to go through if you are ever in the Texas Medical Center in Houston.
Nice! Thanks for the tips!
This saved my life. No kidding.
👍🏽🙏🏽
This would possibly have saved John Ritter.
Early diagnosis is key. That was the big issue with Ritter's case.
Ritter died within 24 hours. It's pretty common for an aortic dissection to be misdiagnosed. Statistically about 40% of people who suffer a dissertation are dead in the first 48 hours.
Some people suffer with connective tissue disorders for 30 years without diagnosis because doctors don't believe them and they only get a diagnosis when it presents as something life threatening like Aortic Dissection or Brain Aneurysms when the patient has been dealing with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia since they were a teen but felt as if this was normal for everyone or was allergic to everything. People with Marfans and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome both face these potential problems.
Those poor grad students. Academia sure is a cutthroat world
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> 40% of people who suffer a dissertation are dead in the first 48 hours.
LOL
Lmao... I just saw that... You would think the autocorrect on my phone would know the difference between a dissection and a dissertation.... I had my aortic Graft implanted 3 years ago next month and have googled it.... A lot!
My friends dad was operated on by the man himself.
So that's what my uncle's aorta was made out of. He had limited movement, the artificial aorta could kink if he bent wrong.
I would like to see develop a better solution.
We've been working on it for decades.
shit bro scientist are slow af
The procedure was actually done against his wishes. He knew the morbidity of a major operation on a 90 year old. After he lost conciousness his wife over rode his wishes. The anesthesiologists at methodist in Houston refused because he didnt want it so they got the one that used to work with him to come and do it. She was the head of the anesthesia dept at the VA in Houston at the time but still had methodist privileges.
I only know this because i used to work there (though this took place a little while after i left) as an anesthesiologist.
Multiple things are named after him in the Texas Medical Center like a Heart Center (https://www.houstonmethodist.org/heart-vascular/ ) and a high school (https://www.houstonisd.org/debakey).
Here in Lake Charles, LA where he was born we have a road named after him with a hospital on it. Just a mile away from my house.
If you're ever in Houston visit Methodist hospital for their debakey museum/stuff. It's pretty fascinating. Of course, they're not the only hospital in the texas medical center with debakey shrines.
Interesting is that he'd come up with a new bit and his wife would stitch them together for his operations.
My mom dated his son when she was younger. Always had good things to say about the family.
“Wakie, wakie, hands of my DeBakey.” Is what I say when residents start grabbing instruments off of my mayo.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is also the plastic that makes up soda bottles and polyester clothes.
I just think it's neat that the same basic polymer system can do so many different things.
He sounds like a man after his own heart.
Also made a really nice forcep for picking up things
I don’t think it’s that uncommon for people to use the medical treatments they develop. Anecdotally a family friend of mine ended up using a cancer treatment he helped develop decades earlier
I think kentaro Miura died from aortic dissection. Shame
So... He pushed pet bottles up aortaes?
historycat95 t1_itmnh4v wrote
How would you like to have been the surgeon who worked on him?
That would be a nightmare probably.
It would feel like he's looking over your shoulder WHILE under.