This could happen only in US! – Dr. No Vs Dr. Yes
Abracadabra By K. B. Ganapathy, Columns, Top Stories

This could happen only in US! – Dr. No Vs Dr. Yes

January 15, 2025

The news of a leopard prowling around in the Infosys campus, north of Mysuru city, was not yet in public domain. So when the invite came for a dinner on the lawns of an industrialist-friend in the neighbourhood of Infosys, I willingly agreed to join the guests. Being winter, outdoor get-together was rather chilling but soon the guests began to warm up and the conversation was getting spirited. Thanks to the free-flow of best of spirits.

Among the guests were some medical doctors whom I knew. One of them was Dr. Upendra Shenoy, the well-known Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeon of Manipal Hospital, Mysuru. Our conversation veered around so many subjects of common interest, like the recently held city doctors annual show of a Musical Nite with the brand name ‘Geeth Gaatha Chal…’ and the mushrooming of medical hospitals with Specialist, Consultant and Visiting Doctors. A new corporate culture in medical care has embraced the city making the private medical treatment expensive. Let it be.

From here our conversation veered to heart surgeries in a natural flow as I had myself been under Dr. Vivek Jawali’s knife in the then Wockhardt Hospital, Bengaluru, about 32-years ago and Dr. Upendra Shenoy too is a heart surgeon.

It was at this point of our conversation, I mentioned of the natural apprehension of a heart patient set to undergo an open-heart surgery that was not as common as it is today. Naturally I was anxious and also those near and dear to me who had gathered in good numbers. My US-based sister-in-law Dr. Rita Muthappa, who was then in Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, was informed of my impending surgery, and she got in touch with Dr. Jawali. All the anxiety got evaporated. I simply surrendered to go under the surgeon’s knife and survived to write this report!

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Be that as it may, it was at this time I first came to know of Dr. Denton Cooley from Dr. Rita as a legendary heart surgeon of America, who sutured and fixed his innumerable patients from a ‘conveyor belt’! May be apocryphal to exaggerate the rush of patients to be operated only by him.

From here on, it was Dr. Upendra Shenoy’s time. He had an interesting, not an anecdote but a real-life episode about  Dr. Denton Cooley to tell.

There was another legendary Dr. Michael DeBakey in Houston, a cardiovascular surgeon and also an educator. It was in 1964 the first successful coronary artery bypass was conducted by him. He was also known for his grafting of aortic aneurysm (related to weakened blood vessel). The story begins here.

Dr. DeBakey and Dr. Cooley are contemporaries and fine surgical craftsmen. Though Dr. DeBakey was considered a mentor for Dr. Cooley, in later days they became rivals and even adversaries for various reasons — one reason was when in 1969 Dr. Cooley ignited controversy with Dr. DeBakey by implanting an artificial heart made of silicone etc., etc. So much so, the question was asked if Dr. Cooley had gone crazy and there were some reasons too. But one that Dr. Upendra Shenoy narrated surprised me beyond belief.

It appears, a Cardiologist showed Dr. Cooley an X-ray of an unusually positioned aortic aneurysm (bubble like dilation of the artery). Dr. Cooley said: “That’s not an aneurysm.” The doctor who showed the X-ray pardoned himself to assert that it was indeed on aortic aneurysm. Dr. Cooley wanted to wager. Take a bet with the doctor who showed him the X-ray. But the latter refused. However, Dr. Cooley audaciously said that he would eat it if it is an aneurysm.

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Lo! Dr. DeBakey opened up the patient and found it to be the aneurysm. Now, Dr. Cooley had to eat his words and eat it as well. Yes, he kept his word!

Dr. Cooley asked the diseased aneurysm to be preserved in alcohol (not in the usual formalin) and summoned a camera crew (media): “And there, entered in the plate, was the bloody pulp of the aneurysm. Dr. Cooley seasoned it (may be with salt and pepper) and ate it.”

Here ends the incident or the story of this legendary heart surgeon as published in newspaper and magazine of the day.

I had the rare opportunity to visit the Cemetery in Houston where Dr. Cooley was buried  after he died in 2016, aged 96 — The Glenwood Cemetery. He was also honoured with a cenotaph in Texas State Cemetery.

e-mail: voice@starofmysore.com

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