Question: What Texas doctor was among the first to perform coronary artery bypass surgery and served as the president and chancellor of Baylor University College of Medicine?
Answer: Michael DeBakey. Born Michel Dabaghi to Lebanese immigrants in 1908 in Louisiana, he attended Tulane University, served as a consultant in the U.S. Army’s Office of the Surgeon General during World War II, and contributed to the establishment of the Veterans Administration after the war. He was the chairman of the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke during the Johnson Administration, and he oversaw surgeries on the exiled Shah of Iran in 1980 and Russian president Boris Yeltsin in 1996. The recipient of numerous awards, DeBakey died in 2008 at the age of 99 and was honored with a burial in Arlington National Cemetery.
