During the Second World War he served in the Surgeon General’s Office, where he rose to the rank of colonel and become the chief of the surgical consultants division.Īfter the war, DeBakey participated in the Hoover Commission-an organization created by President Truman to recommend administrative changes to the federal government of the United States. In 1938 he returned to Tulane to accept a faculty position in general surgery. This same pump would become an integral component of the heart-lung machine that ushered in the era of cardiac surgery.Īfter completing medical school in 6 years-a task that normally took 8 years-he trained as a surgeon at the universities of Strasbourg and Heidelberg. Still as a medical student, DeBakey developed one of the first mechanical blood pumps-the “roller pump”-which enabled the transfer of blood along a conduit. Together they were among the first to propose a link between smoking and lung cancer.
At Tulane he met the legendary surgeon Alton Ochsner, who recognized the eager medical student’s potential and fostered his interest in surgery. Prior to enrolling in high school, DeBakey demonstrated both tenacity and diligence by reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.Īt the age of 20 he enrolled in medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans. His father was the proprietor of two successful drug stores, where DeBakey’s interest in medicine may have been ignited by the physicians who patronized the establishments. He was the eldest of four children of Lebanese immigrants, and his surname was later anglicized to “DeBakey.” Michael Ellis Dabaghi was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on 7 September 1908.
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