Dr. Michael DeBakey, who developed bypass surgery and many other procedures for heart patients, died of natural causes at age 99.

Chances are you care about someone who benefited from the surgical techniques he pioneered and the instruments he invented.

Click the link to read about his achievements and the tens of thousands of patients he operated on, including world leaders and people who could not afford to pay for surgery.

I used to follow Russian politics closely, and Dr. DeBakey became a celebrity in Russia after he was a consultant to President Boris Yeltsin’s bypass operation in 1996.

The other famous passing of the weekend was former White House spokesman Tony Snow, who died of cancer at age 53.