Michael DeBakey
He was a Lebanese-American cardiac surgeon in Houston, Texas. DeBakey was the chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, director of The Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, and senior attending surgeon of The Methodist Hospital in Houston. As a medical student, DeBakey was responsible for developing a major component of the heart-lung machine which made open heart surgery possible. While serving in the military medical corps during World War II, he supported moving the doctors closer to the fighting to better treat the wounded. Today, mobile medical surgical units are commonplace on the front lines of combat. Before dying in 2008, DeBakey established a reputation as one the leading cardiac surgeons in the world.