Michael E. Debakey
Magician of the Heart
American cardiovascular surgeon and surgical pioneer whose gift for innovation led to a series of medical breakthroughs
By Meghna Anand
In 1932, an instructor asked a young medical student called Michael Debakey to find a pump that would study pulse waves in arteries.
Debakey went on to combine older pumps and rubber tubing into one that served the instructor’s purpose. He called it a roller pump.
In his initial days as a doctor, Debakey used the pump to transfer blood directly from a donor to a patient as there were no blood banks at that time.
20 years after that defining assignment in Tulane University, USA, Michael Debakey’s roller pump found its place in medical history as a crucial part of the heart-lung machine that made open heart surgery a reality….
(Read more of Meghna Anand’s story on the upcoming issue of http://www.docfortmeducation.com/pulse/).
