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2006 Achievement Award Recipient
Michael E. DeBakey, MD 

International Medical Pioneer, Educator and Statesman
Eight decades of medical innovation
Selfless Humanitarian
True Legend for All Time

New Cardiovascular Horizons is truly honored to present the sixth annual achievement award to
Michael E. DeBakey, MD.  As Chancellor Emeritus of the Baylor College of Medicine and Director of the DeBakey Heart Center in Houston, Texas, Dr. DeBakey has for more than 8 decades worked tirelessly as a world-renowned medical pioneer.  Dr. DeBakey is deserving of the many prestigious awards recognizing his accomplishments including being cited by the US Library of Congress as a “Living Legend.”

Dr. DeBakey’s clinical medical “firsts” are voluminous and include:
the Heart-Lung Machine Roller Pump, Dacron Vascular Grafts, AAA & TAA resection and grafting, carotid endarterectomy, linking smoking to lung CAncer, angiographically classifying CV disease, Dacron-Patch Angioplasty, CABG, LVAD, partial artificial heart and pioneering heart transplantations.  Dr. DeBakey’s other noteworthy and historic “firsts” include: the MASH Units, VA Medical Units, VA Hospital System, National Library of Medicine and founding editor of JVS.

From a Lebanese upbringing in Lake Charles, Louisiana to Tulane to a healthcare consultant for over 40 countries and the physician to many “heads of state.”  From Rene’ Leriche & Alton Ochsner to thousands of students and residents, from Charity Hospital to over 60,000 CV surgeries, from a World War II
enlistee to the National Medal of Science award to the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, from a dedicated teacher and researcher to the “Inventor of the Year,” from the Academy of Athens and Plato to the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professionals, from an avid reader as a child to 16,000 medical publications and 54 Honorary degrees, from a Time Magazine cover to the New York Times’ best seller list to “Ringing the Bell” at NYSE, from LBJ to Reagan to Boris Yeltsin to telemedicine... from 1928 to today in 2006…

Not only has Dr. DeBakey changed the role of cardiovascular care, but...
his devotion to the service of humanity has made him a true legend for all time.