Dr. Denton Cooley is truly an outstanding pioneer of cardiovascular medicine and surgery. Dr. Cooley graduated from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, U.S.A. in 1944. He trained in Surgery and Thoracic Surgery at both Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Brompton Hospital for Chest Diseases in London, England.

Dr. Cooley has performed nearly 150,000 cardiovascular operations; 45,000 of these being open-heart surgery operations. He has over 200 patents for instruments and devices in his name and has published more than 1,300 articles and reports in the medical literature. Dr. Cooley has had many firsts in the field of cardiovascular medicine and surgery. In 1956 he performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy and in 1968 he performed the first successful heart transplant in North America.

 

In the following year Dr. Cooley became the first surgeon in the world to successfully transplant an artificial heart into a man as a bridge to heart transplantation. In addition to his scientific and educational contributions, one of Dr. Cooley's most significant contributions to cardiovascular medicine and surgery was his founding of the Texas Heart Institute. Over the past 35 years this Institute has become a world-renowned leader in research and education in the field of cardiovascular surgery.

 

In summary, Dr Cooley has been an exemplary clinician, educator and researcher in the field of cardiovascular medicine and surgery over the past 5 decades. He is a very worthy to be the first recipient of the Grand Hamdan International Award for Medical Sciences.