Willerson to Succeed Cooley at Heart Nstitute

By Todd Ackerman, Houston Chronicle

Sep. 27–Dr. James Willerson, president of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, announced Wednesday he was stepping down to succeed Dr. Denton Cooley as head of the Texas Heart Institute.

The resignation and succession at the heart institute will take effect as soon as a new UT-Houston president has been selected and is in place, likely in nine months to a year.

"I’ve been president for seven years now and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished," said Willerson, 67, the heart institute’s president-elect.

"But it’s time to focus full-time on the heart institute."

The heart institute succession plan was announced in October 2004. No timetable was given at the time, although Willerson said he thought the changing of the guard would come in the next year or two. Rumors have since circulated at UT-Houston about when the official announcement would come.

Willerson’s ascension at the heart institute will mark the end of an era.

Cooley, 87, has headed the institute, perennially ranked among the nation’s top 10 heart centers, since founding it in 1962. In its heyday, the institute was the site of some of the world’s biggest and most famous surgery.

The naming of Willerson, a cardiologist, to succeed Cooley reinforces that bygone time. The emphasis now is on prevention and less invasive therapies.

At Willerson’s announcement Wednesday, Cooley downplayed the era’s end.

"I feel emotional, but it’s just the mixed emotions of the health science center’s loss being our gain," said Cooley, who will continue as president emeritus.

Cooley and Willerson spoke about their shared history, which dates back to the 1950s, when the heart surgeon met the 14-year-old aspiring doctor and inspired him to pursue the heart as his specialty. They reunited as student and teacher at Baylor College of Medicine in the 1960s. Cooley later was instrumental in bringing Willerson back to Houston from the UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Willerson announced his resignation before about 150 people, mostly faculty and staff, in the atrium of UT-Houston’s new Institute of Molecular Medicine building, a research center whose creation and staff recruitment are considered his top achievements. Described as "the cornerstone of the university, collaborating across all six UT-Houston schools," it was funded by a $240 million fundraising campaign, the health science center’s largest ever.

During his tenure, Willerson oversaw the construction of five major facilities, three of them not yet completed. During his presidency, research expenditures increased by 45 percent and enrollment by 11 percent.

A workaholic, Willerson was sometimes criticized for having too much on his plate at UT-Houston. Even before being named the heart institute’s president-elect institute, he was its medical director, as well as St. Luke Episcopal Hospital’s chief of cardiology and for a stint the editor of Circulation, the American Association’s largest scientific journal.

todd.ackerman@chron.com

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