Houston Tutors Come To You

The fourth-largest city in the United States, Houston is a bustling metropolis with millions of people living within its limits. Known for a strong economy, Houston’s industries are diverse and lucrative: oil, healthcare, biomedical research, and international imports/exports all contribute the vitality of Houston’s booming population. Houston has given rise to many famous figures, from athletes to artists to politicians, and doctors. One of those doctors was world-renowned heart surgeon, Denton Cooley, who recently passed away at the age of 98.

Cooley was born and raised in Houston, and went on to receive is education at UT Austin and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Athletic, charismatic, and naturally intelligent, Cooley returned to Houston to work in research at the Baylor College of Medicine. Throughout his college career, Cooley had demonstrated an interest in cardiovascular deficiencies, working with Dr. Alfred Blalock, and assisting him in the first “Blue Baby” procedure to correct an infant’s congenital heart defect. In Houston, he was an associate professor of medicine at Baylor and also worked at the city’s Methodist Hospital.

In the 1960s, Cooley founded The Texas Heart Institute, continuing to do research and pioneering new methods for open-heart surgeries. He developed a method to operate without blood transplants for Jehovah’s Witness patients, and in 1969, performed the artificial heart implantation. The following year he did the same when no other heart was available for the patient. Also during this decade, Cooley and his colleagues developed a new method of heart valve implantation, reducing the mortality rate associated with this type of surgery from 70% to 8%. Cooley was considered the busiest heart surgeon in America at the peak of his career, performing multiple surgeries per day. As a result of his illustrious career, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the-President Reagan in 1984.

This is not to say that Cooley had a life without any setbacks—the patients with artificial heart implantations did not live longer than a few days, and in 1988 he declared bankruptcy when the housing market took a turn for the worse. His rivalry with fellow heart surgeon, Dr. Michael DeBakey, made him a subject of constant scrutiny and criticism, and LIFE even ran a cover story of their conflict. This particular story profiled him as arrogant, and this unflattering depiction catapulted him into the public eye, despite his desires to be left to perform his work to the best of his ability.

Tutors in Houston help show their clients how to rally and bounce back after circumstances create academic setbacks. Their work ethic rivals that of Cooley’s, just as determined to draw out the success students have the potential to discover in themselves. Cooley may have saved lives in his day, and tutors, in their own way, can save grades.