Baylor college of medicine hospital houston texas

That same year, Robert Gross at Harvard and Clarence Crafoord and K.G.V. In 1944 Alfred Blalock and Helen Taussig at Johns Hopkins had devised an arterial shunt operation that prolonged the lives of many 'blue babies' born with heart defects. But the boundaries of thoracic surgery were expanding rapidly during this period, often with dramatic results. By contrast, cardiac surgery advanced slowly, owing largely to the difficulty of interrupting the heart's function long enough to repair it, without risking brain damage. Radiographic techniques for studying arteries had also been developed. Cardiology had developed into a distinct specialty before World War II, greatly aided by tools such as the electrocardiograph (EKG) and cardiac catheters, which allowed physicians to measure pressures within the heart chambers. Like all first-generation cardiovascular surgeons, DeBakey had trained in general surgery, doing both thoracic and abdominal procedures, but not working on the heart or its major vessels. He arranged to meet DeBakey's conditions, over the objections of the local medical community.

The chairman, a non-physician, was stunned by this news, and asked DeBakey to stay. Any BUCM graduate desiring specialty training would have to seek it outside Houston, DeBakey noted any patient looking for advanced care would have to do likewise. They told the chairman that the school was third-rate and doomed to remain so unless it got an approved training program at its hospital, because the quality of work there was mediocre. Before he left, however, he and Moursand met with the chair of Baylor's board of trustees to explain his departure. (In most medical schools the department chair controls both the teaching of residents and the surgical service at the affiliated hospital this is a prerequisite for residency accreditation.) DeBakey found the situation unacceptable and prepared to return to Tulane. Finally, the Hermann Hospital offered to make the beds available and appoint DeBakey chief of the Teaching Service, but not the surgery service. Despite Moursand's promise, several months passed with no hospital arrangement. The dean agreed, and DeBakey and his family moved to Houston in December 1948. After his initial interview, DeBakey told Moursand that he would accept the post only if he could have more space for the department and control of at least twenty beds at a local private hospital, so that he could set up an accredited surgical residency program. Much of the surgery was done-often poorly in DeBakey's opinion-by general practitioners.ДeBakey was skeptical regarding Baylor's potential, but his department chair, Alton Ochsner, urged him to consider the opportunity, noting that he could always return to Tulane if things didn't work out. Most of its clinical faculty had chosen to stay in Dallas, so senior medical students got their clinical experience by working with local physicians, almost none of whom were board certified in their specialties.

It had just moved into a new main building from temporary quarters in an old warehouse.

The medical college had no university hospital, no formal residency programs, and no formal affiliation with any Houston hospitals. When BUCM dean Walter Moursand asked DeBakey to become the Department of Surgery chair, however, the TMC site was still mostly open land, with only one paved street.

Anderson Cancer Hospital in Houston, and planned to affiliate several other area hospitals with TMC. Established in 1939, the Anderson Foundation had recently joined with the University of Texas to establish the M.D. The TMC, later to become the largest medical complex in the world, was an initiative of the M.D. The Baylor University College of Medicine (BUCM) had moved to Houston from Dallas in 1944, to serve as the hub for the nascent Texas Medical Center (TMC).

Baylor college of medicine hospital houston texas