Photo by: (Hermann Hospital) Texas State Historical Association

In 1964, the former King of England, then Duke of Windsor, came to Texas Medical Center “to see the maestro,” referring to Dr. Michale E. DeBakey, who performed surgery on the duke’s abdominal aneurism at Methodist Hospital. But he was far from the only celebrity to be treated at TMC. Movie stars, and gangsters, presidents and the famous “Bubble Boy” are just some of the patients treated here over the decades. Ten million patients annually visit TMC, the largest medical complex in the world. Composed of 21 hospitals, eight specialty institutions, eight academic and research institutions, four medical schools, seven nursing schools, three public health organizations, two pharmacy schools, and a dental school (and some pretty fine restaurants), the center is the 8^th largest business district in the country.

It is a far cry from 1925 when Hermann Hospital became the first medical facility to open in the mosquito infested woods near Hermann Park. It wasn’t until 1945 that TMC was established, thanks in part to Monroe D. Anderson, a banker and cotton king who created the MD Anderson Foundation and endowed it with a $19 million gift upon his death. And it wasn’t until 1953 that the UT cancer center bearing his name began construction. It was the three trustees of the foundation — Horace Wilkins, John Freeman, and Col. W.B. Bates — who envisioned using the funds for “hospitals… the promotion of health, science, education, and the advancement and diffusion of knowledge.” According to the TMC website, these men, along with Dr. Ernest Bertner, began encouraging the public’s interest in creating a medical complex with a medical school and research facilities in Houston. And it kept growing.

Photo by: (Bubble Boy) Baylor College of Medicine

Besides famous patients, the center has also been home to pioneering doctors. Dr. Michael DeBakey performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy in 1953, Dr. Denton Cooley designed artificial heart valves in the 1960s, and Dr. James “Red” Duke pioneered emergency medical air transport with Memorial Hermann’s helicopter Life Flight program in 1976.

If you want to learn more about the Texas Medical Center, you can visit the McGovern Historical Collections and Research Center (McGovern Historical Center) in the TMC Library.

“We are open to the public,” says Sandra Yates, head of the McGovern Historical Center. “We definitely have materials on the historical figures involved with the center, papers from Dr. Bertner and others.” You do need an appoint, but Yates says you can schedule that online and even peruse some of the digitalized archives online as well, although a large portion of the collection is not digitalized. Besides TMC’s history, the center has volumes of materials on medicine in general from French medical books published in the 1700 and 1800s, rare dental books donated from the University of Texas Dental School, and more than 1,000 titles on sanitation and communicable diseases from the 1950s donated by the Cora and Webb Mading Foundation.

The center makes its own history next year as it celebrates its 50^th anniversary.

by Marene Gustin