Pioneering U.S. heart surgeon, Denton
Cooley, dies at 96
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[November 19, 2016]
By Will Dunham
(Reuters) - Dr. Denton Cooley, who sparked
controversy and a feud with another pioneering heart surgeon when he
performed the world's first artificial heart implant in 1969, died on
Friday at the age of 96, the Texas Heart Institute said.
Cooley, who also performed the first successful human heart transplant
in the United States, founded the Texas Heart Institute and was one of
the most celebrated heart surgeons in the world.
The Texas native was also known however for a long-running dispute with
another world-renowned innovative surgeon in Houston, Dr. Michael
DeBakey, over the implant operation.
A spokeswoman for Texas Children's Hospital, where Cooley's son-in-law
acts as surgeon in chief, said Cooley died in his Houston home on Friday
morning, surrounded by his four daughters.
Cooley, who estimated he operated on about 100,000 people, developed
many techniques used in cardiovascular surgery and received honors
including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian
award.
"Nothing can compare with the activity of the human heart," Cooley, who
grew up wanting to be a dentist like his father, once told an
interviewer. "And besides that, it's always had a special connotation in
our society, or in our life. It's been the seat of the soul and the seat
of emotions.
"But now we find that it really is a tough little organ. It can tolerate
a great deal and it certainly has been revealed that it can be corrected
in many ways and even replaced by organ transplantation."
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Cooley performed the first successful heart transplant in the United
States in 1968, a year after South African Dr. Christiaan Barnard had
done the first one in the world.
Cooley also broke ground with surgical methods to fix congenital heart
anomalies in infants and children and methods for repairing and
replacing diseased heart valves and went on to found the Texas Heart
Institute.
On April 4, 1969, with no donor heart available for a dying patient,
Cooley implanted an artificial heart in Haskell Karp, a 47-year-old man
from Illinois. The device kept Karp alive for 65 hours until a human
heart became available. Cooley transplanted the human heart to Karp but
the patient died a day later.
The procedure led to trouble because Cooley had used an artificial heart
developed in the laboratory of his former partner DeBakey without his
approval.
Cooley, who had worked with DeBakey at Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston, argued that he implanted the heart device in an urgent bid to
keep his patient alive until a human heart was available for transplant.
DeBakey called what Cooley did an unethical "childish act" in order to
claim a medical landmark, as well as a theft and a betrayal. The device
had been tested in animals but had not been approved for use in people.
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![](../images/111916pics/news_c3.jpg)
Famed heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley leaves memorial services for
Enron founder Ken Lay at the First United Methodist Church in
Houston July 12, 2006. REUTERS/Richard Carson
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The U.S. government ordered an investigation and the American
College of Surgeons censured Cooley. The controversy prompted Cooley
to leave Baylor.
In 2007 Cooley and DeBakey ended their feud and DeBakey died the
next year at age 99.
"He wanted to be able to say he was the first one to use an
artificial heart in a patient," DeBakey told the New York Times in
2007. "I never quite understood it other than his ambition was
almost uncontrolled. I mean, you don't let your ambition get you in
trouble."
Cooley told the Times he was justified in doing the implant. He said
that at the time he was performing more heart operations than
DeBakey or anyone else and viewed himself as "the appropriate person
to do the first implantation of an artificial heart."
It was not until 1982 that the first artificial heart intended for
permanent use was implanted in a person, at the University of Utah.
In his interview with the Times, Cooley said a lawyer once asked him
during a trial if he thought of himself as the world's best heart
surgeon.
"Yes," he replied.
"Don't you think that's being rather immodest?" the lawyer asked.
"Perhaps," Cooley said. "But remember I'm under oath."
(Reporting and writing by Will Dunham; Additional reporting by
Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Trott and Lisa
Shumaker)
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