Dr. Michael DeBakey, a pioneering heart surgeon acknowledged as the father of modern cardiovascular surgery, died at age 99 on July 11 of natural causes at The Methodist Hospital in Houston.

DeBakey performed more than 60,000 heart surgeries and authored more than 1,000 medical reports, papers, chapters and books on medicine and served as medical adviser to U.S. presidents and foreign heads of state.

His patients included the Duke of Windsor, the Shah of Iran, King Hussein of Jordan and Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

The second generation Arab American was credited with a number of medical firsts and served as chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

DeBakey’s many accomplishments over his more than 70-year career include: inventing a major component of the heart-lung machine, which ushered in the era of open-heart surgery; developing artificial hearts and heart pumps to assist patients waiting for transplants; and helping create more than 70 surgical instruments.

Earlier this year, he received the Congressional Gold Medal.

DeBakey served in the Army during World War II and was scheduled to be buried — in his surgical scrubs and cap and white coat — at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Friday.

DeBakey’s first wife, Diana Cooper DeBakey, died of a heart attack in 1972. He is survived by his second wife, Katrin Fehlhaber, their daughter, and two of his four sons from his first marriage.