He lies in repose today in Houston's City Hall, the first man to hold such an honor in the city he helped define.
His legacy lives on in a million different ways. He invented the roller pump critical to heart-lung machines -- making open heart surgery a possibility -- while he was still a medical student. He helped establish the MASH unit and the VA hospital system. He used his wife's sewing machine to make a Dacron graft, which is now widely used to repair blood vessels. He developed artificial hearts and numerous heart assist devices, including the current pump which can be implanted into a small child. He pioneered the surgical procedure on aortic aneurysms, which later saved his own life at the ripe young age of 97. He helped build a world-class medical center with world-class surgeons, and trained many new generations to continue his work. He personally touched lives, having performed more than 60,000 operations in his lifetime.
Although there is no photographic evidence, I feel honored to have met the man and shaken his hand. But even more importantly, I feel even more honored to have worked with and worked on his inventions.
And still, his legacy lives on, as I am forever influenced by this great man to find ways to improve on his works.
