David Sabiston

David Coston Sabiston, Jr., M.D.,, F.A.C.S. (October 4, 1924 – January 26, 2009) was an early innovator in cardiac surgery. In 1962, he performed a seminal procedure that paved the way for modern coronary-bypass surgery, grafting a vein from a patient's leg to bypass a blocked coronary artery during open-heart surgery. The patient died from unrelated complications, but Sabiston's technique and other surgeons' improvements on it led to the development of surgical coronary revascularization as it exists today.