TMC PULSE

t m c » p u l s e | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4 17 The Cooley Legacy H is name is almost synonymous with hearts, and his reputation as a pioneer of cardiovascular surgery is well deserved. The legacy of Denton A. Cooley, M.D., reaches far beyond the walls of the Texas Heart Institute (THI). It is alive in the patients around the world whose hearts are still beating today because of Cooley and his team. At 94 years old, Cooley continues to work nine to five, four days a week. The way he sees it, keeping an active mind is the best way for someone his age to stay sharp. A former University of Texas varsity basketball player, Cooley graduated with highest honors from UT in 1941. He still carries a scar on his chest in the shape of a UT symbol, earned during a junior-year social club initiation ceremony by The Cowboys involving a hot branding iron and tre- mendous UT pride. After two years at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, he transferred to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, gradu- ating Alpha Omega Alpha in 1944. As an intern, he assisted Alfred Blalock, M.D., on the first "Blue Baby" operation. Cooley earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins, and served as a Senior Registrar in London with Russell Brock, a prominent heart surgeon. He went on to serve as a faculty member at what is today Baylor College of Medicine alongside the late Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., then the chairman of the Baylor department of surgery. The 1950s and 60s ushered in exciting advancements in cardiovascular surgery—from the introduction of open-heart surgery, to transplantation, to mechanical assist devices—and Houston's renowned surgeons were at the center of it. "I did the first successful heart trans- plant in the United States, and I was so impressed with the fact that you could actually replace this pump for the whole circulatory system," said Cooley. "The heart is one of the simplest organs in the body…not nearly as complex as the liver or the kidneys. The heart has only one function, which is to pump." The Texas Medical Center was growing at that time, and Cooley saw an opportunity to create a heart institute in a clinical partnership with what is today CHI St. Luke's Health–Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center. "Dr. Cooley wanted to create an entity that would try, through research, to help people with cardiovascular disease," said James T. Willerson, M.D., president of the Texas Heart Institute. "He and his colleagues at the time were doing most of the heart surgery for the entire United States, in adults and chil- dren. But he wanted to do more than the surgery, and he believed that he could establish a Texas Heart Institute that would be involved in research and edu- cation—the education of young doctors, in all facets of cardiovascular disease." Nearly seven years after the founding of the Institute, Cooley notably became the first in the world to implant a total artificial heart (TAH) in a human. The operation took place on April 4, 1969, when a device designed by Domingo Liotta, M.D., a surgical fellow at Baylor College of Medicine, was implanted as a bridge to transplant in forty-seven-year-old Haskell Karp. Karp survived the initial TAH implan- tation, and subsequent heart transplant yearS Before he implanteD the firSt artificial heart in fourty-Seven-year-olD haSkell karp, Denton a. cooley, m.D., laiD the GrounDwork for a half-century of reSearch anD eDucation in carDiovaScular SurGery. B y A m a n d a D . S t e i n (credit: texas heart institute) facinG paGe: cooley holds a Bivacor total artificial heart. research on the device is ongoing at the texas heart institute. dr. cooley wanted to create an entity that would try, through research, to help people with cardiovascular disease. He and his colleagues at the time were doing most of the heart surgery for the entire united States, in adults and children. — JAmeS t. willerSon, m.d. president of the texas heart institute

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