Michael Debakey, the pioneering cardiac surgeon was born 7th September 1908. His parents were Lebanese immigrants who influenced his choice of career from an early age. He was inspired to undertake medical training after listening to conversations in his father’s pharmacy, and during his career he later went on to credit much of his surgical success to his mother, for teaching him to sew and knit as a child.

Michael Debakey attended the Tulane University, in New Orleans. Whilst still in medical school in 1932 he invented the roller pump, which was used to transfuse blood directly from a donor to a patient before blood banks came about. The significance of this was not recognised until twenty years later, when it was adapted and became a component of the heart lung machine, making open heart surgery possible. This was only the start of a lifetime of innovation; throughout a career which spanned seventy five years Michael Debakey invented over fifty surgical instruments. These include items such as blood transfusion needles, suture scissors and cardiovascular forceps. The cardiovascular forceps have atraumatic teeth, which stop the flow of blood during surgery without damaging the vessel itself. The surgical instruments and procedures which Debakey developed were wonders of the medical world, and today they are common place in most hospitals.

Debakey helped to develop modern treatments for arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and pioneered the surgical removal of blockages in the neck arteries as a treatment for stroke patients. He was at the forefront of the development of artificial arteries and coronary bypass surgery, and in 1958 performed the first successful patch graft angioplasty to reverse arterial narrowing. In 1964 he performed the first heart bypass operation, using a transplanted leg vein to route blood around blocked coronary arteries.

Michael Debakey was amongst one of the first surgeons in the U.S to perform transplant surgery. Initially death rates were high due to the recipients rejecting the organs, but the advent of a new anti rejection drug gave new impetus to organ transplants in the 1980s. In 1984 he performed his first heart transplant in fourteen years.

His work added decades to the lives of his patients, and by 1992 he had performed more than 50000 procedures and trained hundreds of cardiovascular surgeons. This was to be of benefit to him, as in 2006 he became the oldest patient to undergo surgery for a damaged aorta, at the age of 97. This was a procedure he had devised some fifty years ago, and it undoubtedly saved his life. The procedure was carried out by surgeons trained by Debakey himself.

Michael Debakey died 11th July 2008, aged 99 years but his legacy still remains. A large range of Debakey Atraumatic Forceps can be viewed on our website.