Dr. Michael DeBakey's Long and Productive Life (1/2)

Michael DeBakey performed more than sixty thousand operations during his long career as a heart surgeon. His patients included American presidents John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. They also included Russian president Boris Yeltsin and the Shah of Iran.

Doctor DeBakey died July eleventh in Houston, Texas, two months' short of his one hundredth birthday. As a medical student in nineteen thirty-one, he invented the roller" class="hjdict" word="roller" target=_blank>rollerpump. Years later it would be used for blood transfusions during heart operations. The roller pump became a major part of the heart-lung machine. The machine pumps oxygen-rich blood to the brain and other organs so doctors can operate on the heart.

Michael DeBakey was a pioneer of open heart surgery, which has saved countless" class="hjdict" word="countless" target=_blank>countless lives. The name means that the chest is open and surgery is performed on the heart. Doctors may or may not open the heart itself as well. Michael DeBakey was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on September seventh, nineteen hundred and eight. His parents were Lebaneseimmigrants.

He was always a good student. He loved to learn. As a child his mother taught him to sew. This proved helpful years later when he sewed polyester tubes into patients to perform heart bypass operations.