“Our fellowship has a rich history of stalwart clinician-educators, such as Dr. Robert Leachman, Dr. Robert Hall, Texas Heart Institute President Emeritus Dr. James T. Willerson, and many others, who take tremendous pride in training our fellows.”
–Dr. Stephanie Coulter, Fellowship Program Director
The Texas Heart Institute Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center began in 1965 and honors the legacy of Dr. Denton A. Cooley by supporting both the education and research missions of THI.
THI’s teaching faculty consists of more than 70 clinical cardiologists and cardiac specialists. In this diverse group of clinicians, every practice model is represented, including single- and multi-subspecialty cardiologists who practice in private, academic, or hybrid settings. This provides a unique training opportunity for the fellows in the program and is a large part of what makes THI’s cardiology and subspecialty programs outstanding.
Under the leadership of Program Director Dr. Stephanie Coulter and Associate Program Director Dr. George Younis, the cardiology and cardiovascular subspecialty fellowship programs have attracted some of the best and brightest clinical physicians from top-tier medical training programs around the country. In 2018, more than 28 fellows were trained throughout the course of the year. Across the five cardiology and cardiology subspecialty programs, we graduated 13 fellows.
Denton A. Cooley Fellowship
“. . .for those of us who didn’t train in the Texas Medical Center, you know about the history of Dr. Cooley and other cardiac pioneers, but the gravity of it can be lost on you. When you are touring the various locations and really observing the history, you see just how far we’ve come. It makes you realize, the people that came before us, we owe them a huge debt of gratitude because their work has enabled us to do operations that were just a fantasy 50 years ago.”
—Adam Protos, MD (Inaugural Class of 2018), cardiothoracic surgeon from Jackson, MS
THI was proud to host the inaugural recipient of the Denton A. Cooley Fellowship in the spring of 2018. The fellowship, which is funded and administered by the American Association for Thoracic Surgery Foundation, provides an educational experience for North American cardiothoracic surgeons who are in their final year of residency or have recently completed it.
This fellow spends up to four weeks studying at THI, learning from our team of world-renowned physicians and researchers, including Drs. Jennifer Cozart, O.H. Frazier, Charles Hallman, James Livesay, and Joseph Coselli. These pioneers take tremendous pride in sharing decades of knowledge with our next generation of cardiac specialists. This experience is invaluable to a young surgeon. We continue to embrace the spirit of this fellowship and honor these great mentors.
