AllMovie

Ken Mandel's documentary portrait DeBakey pays reverential homage to Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey. Long regarded as one of the top pioneers in global cardiovascular surgery (and cited by at least one journal as the greatest surgeon in history), Dr. DeBakey earned his bachelor's degree and his M.D. from Tulane University in New Orleans, then returned to Tulane after WWII service as a faculty member, where he pioneered innumerable surgical advances including wartime M.A.S.H. units (an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital), the roller pump that made open-heart surgery a reality, Dacron grafts to repair blood vessels, and countless other wonders. Among other accomplishments, DeBakey performed an estimated 60,000 operations, clocked in as the first to complete a carotid endarterectomy (a procedure used to correct carotid stenosis) and became the very first to do a coronary artery bypass. With DeBakey, Mandel carries audiences through the surgeon's remarkable history, touching on his personal life, his numerous professional accomplishments, and his legacy within the context of medical science. The completion of Mandel's documentary could not have been more timely: DeBakey died of natural causes in July 2008, not long after the completion of this film. He was 99 years old.