Michael DeBakey was a pioneering cardiovascular surgeon. He was born on 7 September 1908 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, one of five children of Shaker and Raheeja DeBakey, Lebanese immigrants who had first gone to Canada and then Louisiana. He would refer to himself as a 'cajun', to denote this pathway. The whole family, who spoke French at home, were expected to achieve: they rose at 4am because it was considered sinful to lie in bed. His father was a pharmacist and his mother a seamstress. He liked the doctors who came into his father's shop and wished to become one of them. He did not remember a time when he was uncertain of his future occupation. He studied at Tulane University, New Orleans, where he was influenced by the surgeons Rudolph Matas and Alton Ochsner. In his spare time he became involved in research in the department of medicine. The research team wished to bypass the circulation and were making better progress with the oxygenation than with the pump mechanism. In other words, they could replicate the lungs more easily than the pumping action of the heart. DeBakey researched every kind of pump by reading journals in engineering libraries. He said that he was especially useful as he could read original works in French and in German, as well as English. Eventually he came up with the idea of what became the 'roller pump' for open heart surgery and the problem was solved, unfortunately, no one else saw so clearly the potential for this discovery. In 1935, he went to Strasbourg (to work with René 'Papa' Leriche) and Heidelberg (with Martin Kirschner). Alongside Leriche was Jean Kunlin, who was soon to do the first leg bypass, but DeBakey described Kirschner as the better technical surgeon and Leriche as a great thinker. In 1948 he became chairman of the department of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. The Methodist Hospital became his base within Baylor College of Medicine, of which he became chancellor and for which he raised huge sums of money, over $200 million. In 1953 he was to adapt Dacron to replace the abdominal aorta diseased by aneurysm. He went to a shop for ladies' undergarments, where, he said, he 'felt distinctly uncomfortable'. He took a length of Dacron home and sewed it into a tube and put it into dogs. 'It worked so I used it for humans.' The inert Dacron bypass thus came into practice and remains central to open surgical practice today, 60 years later. Cid Dos Santos (later professor in Lisbon), son of Reynaldo Dos Santos, head of surgery at the university, was asked to remove a thrombus from a femoral artery. His father gave the instruction. Cid pulled a little hard and out came part of the arterial wall and by chance, the first endarterectomy was performed, by mistake. The result was surprisingly good. DeBakey was first to use this new method on a blocked carotid artery on 8 August 1953 and this worked as well. He did not write it up for 19 years. The reason for this delay is uncertain, but he said that time needed to elapse to be sure that it was safe procedure. Felix Eastcott of St Mary's Hospital was of a similar vintage to both DeBakey and Cid Dos Santos, and reported the first carotid procedure in November 1954. The associates of DeBakey were also very distinguished, especially Denton Cooley and Dr Stanley Crawford, both of whom would not have been the men they were without the example of DeBakey. The difference was that Stanley Crawford recognised this and attributed all of his success to 'Mike'. Denton did not, and incurred Mike's wrath. Once, when visiting the president of the United States in Washington, it is alleged that DeBakey received congratulations that his centre had just put in the world's first mechanical heart. The problem was that DeBakey had forbidden Denton Cooley to use the mechanical heart, which DeBakey had declared was not yet ready. Legend has it that Cooley was sacked forthwith. However, Cooley went on to build the Texas Heart Institute, which towered over the Methodist Hospital where DeBakey worked. They did not speak for years, but were reconciled before DeBakey died. 'They were both great men and friends of mine,' said Stanley Crawford, who felt that one hospital was too small for both egos. DeBakey went on to operate on the Duke of Windsor, the Shah of Persia and President Yeltsin in Moscow. He was a celebrity and appeared on the front page of *Time* magazine. With all great people there is another side. He came over as difficult to approach, except to those that he would allow to be close. This is possibly because his attitude was that every moment had to be filled with doing something of significance. He demanded standards higher than many could achieve. He was disappointed if a resident did not have as wide an education as he had had. He demanded good results. DeBakey was indeed a great technical surgeon and had difficulty accepting that some mere mortals fell below his own very high standards. Those few who had the privilege to see DeBakey at the bedside saw a memorable doctor- patient relationship. He had a way of reassuring patients that they were now in his hands and that he would personally see to it that all would be well. The patients, doctors and nurses around him realised that he was absolutely dedicated to their wellbeing. His interaction with his patients was an object lesson that no one would ever forget. It was known by all that he was not just a great surgeon and inventor, but that his presence raised the horizons and ambitions of those around him. Michael DeBakey died on 11 July 2008 at the age of 99, just as his 100th birthday celebrations were being planned. His first wife, Diana Cooper DeBakey, died in 1972. He was also predeceased by his sons, Ernest O DeBakey and Barry E DeBakey. He was survived by his wife, Katrin, daughter Olga and sons Michael and Denis.