Denton a cooley military pay

American heart and cardiothoracic surgeon (1920–2016)

Denton Arthur Cooley (August 22, 1920 – November 18, 2016) was an American cardiothoracic surgeon famous for performing the first implantation of a total artificial heart.

Cooley was also the founder and surgeon in-chief of The Texas Heart Institute, chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at clinical partner Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, consultant in Cardiovascular Surgery at Texas Children's Hospital and a clinical professor of Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

School and early career

Cooley was born August 22, 1920, in Houston,^[1][2] and graduated in 1941 from the University of Texas at Austin (UT), where he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity and the Texas Cowboys, played on the basketball team, and majored in zoology.

He became interested in surgery through several pre-medical classes he attended in college^[3] and began his medical