page_title: Michael DeBakey
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Michael DeBakey / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: Michael Ellis DeBakey (born Michel Dabaghi; September 7, 1908 – July 11, 2008) was a Lebanese-American cardiac surgeon and vascular surgeon, scientist and medical educator who became the chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, director of the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart &amp; Vascular ..
context_page_description: Michael Ellis DeBakey was a Lebanese-American cardiac surgeon and vascular surgeon, scientist and medical educator who became the chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, director of the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, and senior attending surgeon at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, with a career spanning 75 years.
  Born to Lebanese Christian immigrants, DeBakey was inspired to pursue a career in medicine by the physicians that he had met at his father's drug store, and he simultaneously learned sewing skills from his mother. He subsequently attended Tulane University for his premedical course and Tulane University School of Medicine to study medicine. At Tulane, he developed a version of the roller pump, which he initially used to transfuse blood directly from person to person and which later became a component of the heart–lung machine. Following early surgical training at Charity Hospital, DeBakey was encouraged to complete his surgical fellowships in Europe, before returning to Tulane University in 1937.
context_section_description: Michael DeBakey was born as Michel Dabaghi in Lake Charles, Louisiana on September 7, 1908, to the Lebanese parents Shaker Morris and Raheeja Dabaghi. The name was later anglicized to DeBakey. His parents were Lebanese Maronite Christian immigrants, spoke French and fled oppression from the Ottomans to settle in Cajun Country where French was spoken.
  His father was a businessman involved in establishing rice farms, drug stores and estate agencies, and DeBakey helped out with keeping the books. He was inspired to become a doctor after meeting local physicians while he worked at his father's pharmacy.
  DeBakey attended school in Lake Charles and was the eldest of five children, having three sisters and one brother, Ernest (Ernie), who would later become a thoracic surgeon. His sisters Lois and Selma also pursued careers in science. There was another sister, Selena.
  As a child, DeBakey learned to play the saxophone and was taught by his seamstress mother to sew, crochet, knit and tat. He could sew his own shirt by the age of 10. He also became intrigued with the Encyclopædia Britannica and is said by colleagues to have read it from beginning to end. He learned French and German and participated in a Boy Scout troop. He won awards for vegetables he had grown in his garden.
caption: Michael DeBakey's statue in the American University of Science and Technology's campus in his homeland capital, Beirut, Lebanon.
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