I often tie people from history into my blog and I am going to do it again today. Dr. DeBakey, the doctor who invented the heart bypass, died this past weekend at age 99. He was operated on by his own procedure some years ago. World leaders traveled to see DeBakey at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston when they needed the procedure; the most famous was probably the Duke of Windsor. Many more followed his lead even though the procedure was available in their country and had been successfully conducted thousands of times. Their reason for traveling to Houston was they wanted the “maestro” to perform the procedure. He also pioneered the mobile army surgical hospital (MASH), which placed surgical teams closer to the front lines where they were most needed. Countless other coronary procedures were perfected by DeBakey including the external heart pump and angioplasty. He also symbolizes the much criticized medical system of the United States. Often, individuals confuse the USA’s lack of medical coverage for all citizens or lack of socialized medicine with the quality of medical care. Those who travel know, without a doubt, that medical care in the United States is the best in the world, and, although expensive, this is the country where the most-used pharmaceuticals are developed and where the best morbidity rates are found at major hospitals. Health is an issue and concern for business travelers and GT has addressed this in our much-read regular column on travel health, Travel RX. -Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO