Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.
September 7, 1908 - July 11, 2008
Chancellor Emeritus
Former President and CEO
Former Chair, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery
Dr. Michael E. DeBakey was chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, a Distinguished Service Professor, the Olga Keith Wiess Professor of Surgery, and director of The DeBakey Heart Center.
He was internationally recognized as an ingenious medical inventor and innovator, gifted teacher, premier surgeon, and medical statesman.
While in medical school, DeBakey invented the roller pump, which became an essential component of the heart-lung machine and helped usher in the era of open-heart surgery.
Best known for his trailblazing efforts in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, he was the first to perform successful excision and graft replacement of aneurysms of the thoracic aorta and obstructive lesions of the major arteries. A pioneer in the development of an artificial heart, he was the first to use a partial artificial heart--a left ventricular bypass pump--successfully. He conceived the idea of lining a bypass pump and its connections with Dacron velour, a concept he later applied to the Dacron arterial grafts he had developed.
In 1953, he performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy, establishing the field of surgery for strokes. In 1964, DeBakey and associates performed the first successful aortocoronary-artery bypass with autogenous vein graft. In 1968, he led a team of surgeons in a historic multiple-transplant procedure in which the heart, kidneys, and one lung of a donor were transplanted into four recipients.
Born in Lake Charles, La., DeBakey received his bachelor's, master's, and M.D. degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans. He completed his internship at Charity Hospital in New Orleans and his residency in surgery at the University of Strasbourg, France, and at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He served on the Tulane Medical School surgical faculty from 1937 to 1948. While on military leave from 1942 to 1946, he served in the Office of the Surgeon General as director of the Surgical Consultants' Division. He joined Baylor in 1948, serving as chairman of the Department of Surgery until 1993. DeBakey was president of the College from 1969 to 1979 and served as chancellor from 1979 to January 1996, when he became chancellor emeritus.
His ability to bring his professional knowledge to bear on public policy earned him a reputation as a medical statesman. He was a member of the medical advisory committee of the Hoover Commission and was chairman of the President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke during the Johnson administration. He worked to improve standards of health care. He held numerous consultative appointments, having served an unprecedented three terms on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health and two terms as chairman of the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine, which he helped establish.
DeBakey was a member of the most distinguished medical societies, and served as president of many of them. He published more than 1,400 medical articles, chapters, and books on various aspects of surgery, medicine, health, medical research, and medical education, as well as ethical, socioeconomic, and philosophic discussions in these fields. His Living Heart book was a best seller.
DeBakey received about 50 honorary degrees from prestigious colleges and universities, as well as more than 200 awards from educational institutions, professional and civic organizations, and governments throughout the world. He received honors including the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction from President Lyndon B. Johnson--the highest honor a United States citizen can receive, the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan, the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Research (the American equivalent of the Nobel Prize) and the Congressional Gold Medal.
Services for Dr. DeBakey
An estimated 2,000 visitors passed through City Hall on July 15 to pay tribute to Dr. DeBakey where he lay in repose. A Memorial Service at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart was held in honor of Dr. DeBakey on July 16. More than 1,800 attended. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Dr. S. Ward Casscells joined Dr. DeBakey's family, friends and colleagues at Arlington National Cemetery where he was buried on July 18.