HOUSTON -- Pioneering heart surgeon Dr. Michael E. DeBakey was remembered at a memorial service Wednesday as not only a brilliant physician and medical innovator, but also as friend and humanitarian.

During a two-hour service at Houston's Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, friends and colleagues detailed DeBakey’s rise to becoming the father of modern heart surgery.

Mixed in with those accolades were heartfelt stories of DeBakey’s personal life, everything from his love of gumbo to his learning to play the clarinet in three months to his baby-sitting abilities.

Dr. DeBakey's friends and colleagues say he led a good life.

"This is a day for all of us to reflect, to say what can we now do to make the world better for mankind -- because that was what was driving him," said Dr. Kenneth Mattox, Professor of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine.

Joseph Fiorenza, Archbishop Emeritus of Galveston-Houston, called Dr. DeBakey a servant of humanity to the very end of his life. “He gave them joy and hope at the same time and that's a tremendous gift."

The main eulogy was delivered by Dr. Robert Schuller, the televangelist from the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California. He was invited by DeBakey's widow, Katrin.

Dr. Schuller called this a "super celebration" for a man who "dared to face the impossible" and "change the world."

"He comes to the end of his earthly life with pride behind him, love around him, and hope ahead of him. Now that's a successful life," said Schuller.

A dozen colleagues and friends spoke about that remarkably successful life. The audience included the who's who in Houston society, medical professionals in scrubs, and hospital uniforms. It was a show of respect for a legend, who leaves this world dressed in his scrubs.

“I am of Lebanese origin and I am proud of that too. I am biased a little bit," said Dr. Gernard Albina with St. Joseph Hospital.

If so, then there were more than 2,000 very biased people at the services.

Close family friend and Houston socialite Joanne Herring also offered her memories of Dr. DeBakey.

“Oh, he was a great hero, but he loved to laugh. He was a man that was lots of fun. And yet everybody liked to put him on a pedestal because of course he was an icon. He changed the world,” said Herring.

The tributes to the pioneering heart surgeon have been unending since his death last week.

On Tuesday, Dr. DeBakey’s body lay in repose at City Hall.

Officials said it is the first time a Houstonian was given that honor. DeBakey’s family requested it.

Patients who said they benefited from the cardiovascular surgical techniques he helped create, as well as many of Houston’s social and political elite and others who simply wanted to pay their respects filed past his flag-draped coffin.

DeBakey was dressed in the clothes that became his familiar uniform: surgical scrubs and cap and a white coat.

AP

Katrin DeBakey, center, with her daughter, Olga, left, at Houston City Hall where her husband, Dr. Michael DeBakey lay in repose.

Among those who paid their respects was fellow heart surgeon and once longtime rival Denton Cooley.

The falling out between the two men in the 1960s led to one of medicine’s best-known rivalries.

Cooley said he was saddened by DeBakey’s death and reflected on their once fierce rivalry.

“It had its positive and negative effects. The positive outweighed the negative,” he said. “Competition makes for real progress. We were both active competitors.”

After Cooley performed the first artificial heart implant in 1969, DeBakey accused him of using an artificial heart that DeBakey had been developing. Cooley said he and another doctor had built the heart privately. Cooley was censured for his actions and the former collaborators avoided each other, barely speaking for decades. The two men made amends in October.

Judy Ascencios, 66, said she came to thank DeBakey for helping develop the surgical techniques that saved her husband Aquiles’ life. Her husband, also a doctor, had quadruple bypass surgery three years ago.

“He wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t been for the innovations and ideas of Dr. DeBakey,” she said. “He was a great man.”

Aquiles Ascencios, 73, said he was glad to be alive today.

“I feel great. Thank God,” he said. “I have a great respect for Dr. DeBakey. I will miss him dearly.”

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.

His patients included such famous individuals as the Duke of Windsor, the Shah of Iran, King Hussein of Jordan, and presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Elisa Barajas, who worked at The Methodist Hospital, whose heart and vascular center bears DeBakey’s name, said she can’t drive anymore so she told her daughter “you need to take me to see him.”

Barajas recalled how when she worked at Methodist, first as a nursing attendant and later as an insurance biller, she would run into DeBakey.

“I didn’t know him personally. But he would check on his patients and I would open the door for him,” the 72-year-old said, adding with a school girl giggle, “I got to even touch him.”

Dr. DeBakey will be buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery.