Michael E.

DeBakey Biography
Doctor, Educator, Inventor, Surgeon (19082008)
NAME

: Michael E. DeBakey

OCCUPATION

: Doctor, Educator, Inventor, Surgeon

PLACE & DATE

: Lake Charles, Louisiana . September 7, 1908

OF BIRTH
EDUCATION

: Tulane University School , Baylor College of

Medicine

Dr. DeBakey was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1908. His childhood was shaped by
his voracious curiosity, and he decided at an early age to devote himself to medicine.
DeBakey received his BS degree from Tulane University in New Orleans. Even as a
medical student, Dr. DeBakey began to develop a reputation for surgical skill and willingness to
create new solutions to surgical challenges. Dr. DeBakey also invented the roller pump during
his student years. This device, which rhythmically propels fluid through a flexible tube, would
later become a crucial part of the heart-lung machine used during open heart surgery. Its ability
to replicate the rhythmic pulsing of the human heart earned it the name peristaltic pump. In
1932, he received an M.D. degree from Tulane University School of Medicine. He remained in
New Orleans to complete his internship and residency in surgery at Charity Hospital.
DeBakey completed his surgical fellowships at the University of Strasbourg, France,
under Professor Ren Leriche, and at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, under Professor
Martin Kirschner.
During World War II, Dr. DeBakey volunteered for military service and was assigned to
the Surgical Consultant's Division of the U.S. Surgeon General's office. From 1942 to 1946, he
was on military leave as a member of the Surgical Consultants' Division in the Office of the
Surgeon General of the Army, and in 1945 he became its Director and received the Legion of
Merit. DeBakey helped develop the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) units and later
helped establish the Veteran's Administration Medical Center Research System. He joined the
faculty of Baylor University College of Medicine (now known as the Baylor College of
Medicine) in 1948, serving as Chairman of the Department of Surgery until 1993. DeBakey was
president of the college from 1969 to 1979, served as Chancellor from 1979 to January 1996; he
was then named Chancellor Emeritus. He was also Olga Keith Wiess and Distinguished Service

Professor in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and
Director of the DeBakey Heart Center for research and public education at Baylor College of
Medicine and The Methodist Hospital.
DeBakey's 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 in numerous capacities to
improve national and international standards of health care. Among his numerous consultative
appointments was a three-year membership on the National Advisory Heart and Lung Council of
the National Institutes of Health DeBakey served in the U.S. Army during World War II and
helped to revolutionize wartime medicine by supporting the stationing of doctors closer to the
front lines. This concept greatly improved the survival rate of wounded soldiers and resulted in
the development of Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) units during the Korean War
Debakey's accomplishments read like a general list of medical breakthroughs: In 1953, he
performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy as treatment for stroke, and in 1964 he
accomplished the first successful coronary artery bypass, using a transplanted leg vein to reroute
blood beyond blocked coronary arteries. In 1966, he performed the first successful implantation
of a ventricular assist device (VAD), the procedure for which he is likely most remembered.
Years later, teaming with Robert Jarvik, DeBakey created the Jarvik artificial heart, which
was first implanted in a human in 1982. And in the 1990s, working with NASA engineers,
DeBakey helped develop a heart pump that was so small it could be used in children (the blood
flow measurements were taken using a computer that usually modeled rocket-fluid flow).
DeBakey received several awards over the course of his long life, including the American
Medical Association Distinguished Service Award (1959), Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award
(1969), Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction (1969), and Presidential National Medal
of Science (1987). He also received more than 50 honorary degrees from universities around the
world, and served on the editorial boards of many medical journals.
In 2006, DeBakey underwent open heart surgery, a procedure that he had pioneered some
50 years earlier to repair a torn aorta. He died of natural causes in 2008, two months before his
100th birthday.

Muhammida Fahriana S 201410330311024 Medical

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._DeBakey (accessed Oct 21 2014).
http://www.biography.com/people/michael-debakey-9269009#awards-and-recognition (accessed Oct
21 2014).
http://www.houstonmethodist.org/mdhvc.cfm?id=35825 (accessed Oct 21 2014).