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At the end of the war, DeBakey recommended the creation of specialized medical centers in different areas of the United States to treat wounded military personnel returning from war. From

that recommendation evolved the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) system. In addition, he proposed the systematic medical follow-up of Veterans, which led to the establishment of the

Commission on Veterans Medical Problems of the National Research Council and an extensive VAMC research program. In October 1948, DeBakey accepted the position as chairman of Surgery at the

Baylor University College of Medicine, the predecessor of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. That same year, through his work with the Hoover Commission, DeBakey was instrumental in the

conversion of the old Houston Navy Hospital to the Veterans Administration Hospital on April 15, 1949. Acting on orders from President Truman to assume operation of the Navy Hospital, Warren

Magnuson, M.D., the medical director of the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C., called upon DeBakey to organize and direct staffing at the hospital. DeBakey, with the help of the

full-time faculty at Baylor University College of Medicine, provided the medical staff and established the Dean's Committee. As chief surgeon at the Houston Veterans Administration

Hospital, DeBakey also created an accredited residency program for the facility. In the 1950s, DeBakey further developed his theory that there must be a way for a surgeon either to cut open

a blocked artery, remove the obstruction, and sew the artery back together, or alternatively, bypass the obstruction completely. Basing his work on this unshakable conviction, he took his

first step toward success, when he purchased some fabric from a Houston store, and using a craft he had learned from his mother as a child, created the first Dacron prosthetic artery on his

wife’s sewing machine (pictured below).