Cardiovascular Surgeon Michael DeBakey, whose career spanned more than seven worthy decades, abundant in pioneering contributions and breakthrough accomplishments, passed away Friday, July 11, in Houston. He was 99.

Baylor College of Medicine and Methodist Hospital issued a statement early Saturday, according to which Michael DeBakey passed away of “natural causes” shortly after arriving at the hospital.

“Dr. DeBakey’s reputation brought many people into this institution, and he treated them all: heads of state, entertainers, businessmen and presidents, as well as people with no titles and no means,” said Ron Girotto, president of The Methodist Hospital System.

Michael DeBakey became world-famous over the course of his career, treating world leaders such as American presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the Shah of Iran, King Hussein of Jordan, Turkish President Turgut Ozal and Nicaraguan leader Violetta Chamorro.

However renowned he became and however eminent some of his patients were, DeBakey never forgot that a human life is a human life and treated them equally. “Once you incise the skin, you find that they are all very similar,” he said.

In 1932, while still in school (he received his bachelor’s and medical degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans), he invented the roller pump, an essential component of the heart-lung machine, which replaces the heart and lungs’ function during surgery. Nowadays, the procedure is quite common but more than seventy years ago, DeBakey had begun his pioneering in the realm of cardiovascular surgery. 

DeBakey is also the creator of bypass surgery and helped create more than 70 surgical instruments. e was the first to perform replacement of arterial aneurysms and obstructive lesions in the mid-1950s.

Earning the reputation of a brilliant surgeon, he had performed no less than 50,000 surgeries by 1992. He is said to have performed more than 60,000 heart surgeries during his career.

Little over two years ago, a then 97-year-old DeBakey underwent surgery for a damaged aorta, interestingly enough, a procedure he developed.

DeBakey was born on Sept. 7, 1908, in Lake Charles, La., to Lebanese parents and knew from a tender age that he wanted to be a doctor. The Associated Press quotes him as saying in 1999 that upon finishing medical school in 1932, “there was virtually nothing you could do for heart disease. If a patient came in with a heart attack, it was up to God.”

His work throughout the years was highly acclaimed by Methodist President Ron Girotto. “He has improved the human condition and touched the lives of generations to come. We will greatly miss him,” he said.