DeBakey legacy lives on in Baylor medical humanities scholarship

Dr. Michael DeBakey joined the Baylor University family in 1948, when he joined the Baylor College of Medicine faculty (more than 20 years before the college became an independent institution). His accomplishments are too numerous to detail here — that would be its own blog post — but Dr. DeBakey’s New York Times obituary from 2008 gives a great rundown.

Even after his passing, the long connection between the names “DeBakey” and “Baylor” continues today — certainly in Houston at the College of Medicine, but also in Waco, thanks to the Michael E. DeBakey, Selma DeBakey and Lois DeBakey Endowed Scholarship in Medical Humanities.

Established in 2009 by a $500,000 gift from the DeBakey Medical Foundation and doubled in size by an equal gift from the foundation just this month, the DeBakey Endowed Scholarship provides assistance to junior and senior medical humanities majors at Baylor.

The medical humanities program takes a unique approach to educating the doctors of tomorrow by incorporating the insights of disciplines ranging from literature to economics to religion into the practice of modern scientific medicine. The idea behind the program (which is now being emulated at other universities) is to produce Baylor graduates with not only the scientific background necessary for a career in medicine, but also a sense of human understanding that will allow physicians to care for their patients as people.

Sic ’em, DeBakey family and Baylor medical humanities students!

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