JFK Assassination Figure. A surgeon, he is remembered as the first doctor to treat President Kennedy in the Parkland Hospital Emergency Room on November 22, 1963. Raised in Denton, Texas, he received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Texas and in 1961 earned his M.D. with honors from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. A first year surgical resident in 1963, Dr. Carrico was in the emergency room seeing another patient at the time of JFK's arrival and thus became the initial physican to evaluate him; though he realized that the President's injuries would most probably be fatal, he observed agonal respirations, detected a heartbeat via stethoscope, and inserted an endotracheal tube to assist with respiration. At that point surgical supervision was passed to Dr. Mac Perry, who performed a later-controversial tracheotomy, but Dr. Carrico remained in attendance and assisted with CPR efforts until the President was pronounced dead by neurosurgeon Kemp Clark about 25 minutes after his arrival at Parkland. In the aftermath, the doctor gave testimony to the Warren Commission in which he described the wounds and detailed the resuscitation effort, remained in his residency, and went on to a distinguished career. Leaving Dallas for Seattle in 1974, he became chief of surgery at Harborview Medical Center, was appointed chairman of surgery at the University of Washington in 1983, then in 1990 returned to Texas as head of surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern. During his career Dr. Carrico received many honors, trained numerous residents, and served a term as President of the American Board of Surgery; following his 2000 retirement, he returned to Whidbey Island, Washington where he died of colon cancer. A friendly, cheerful man, he willingly appeared in documentaries, gave interviews about his experiences, and even accommodated autograph requests, though he never wavered from his stated conclusion that the Warren Commission 'got it right'. In 2013 he was portrayed by Zac Efron in the film "Parkland". Of the mismatch between wound descriptions given by some of the Dallas doctors and those recorded by the Bethesda pathologists, he asked people to remember that "Everyone in the room was trying to save his life, not figure out forensics".