Barry Cooper, MD: a conversation with the editor.

Volume 19, Number 3256 257 Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent) 2006;19:257–268 B arry Cooper (Figure 1) was born on January 22, 1945, in Louisville, Kentucky, and that is where he grew up. His parents had 4 sons, and Barry was the second. One of Barry’s brothers also became a physician, and the other two brothers became lawyers. After graduating first in his high school class, Barry Cooper went to Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, made Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, and graduated in 1967. He then entered e Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, graduating in 1971. He interned and did his assistant residency in medicine at e Johns Hopkins Hospital and after completion of those 2 years became a clinical associate in the endocrine section of the Gerontology Research Center of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). After completing that research, he was a fellow in the hematology division of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital of Harvard Medical School from 1975 to 1977. He then joined the Harvard faculty, where he remained for 2 years before coming to Dallas, Texas, and Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) in 1979. Since 1981, he has been codirector of the hematology division of the Department of Internal Medicine at BUMC and also clinical professor of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. During his period at NIH and the Brigham, Dr. Cooper proved himself to be a fine researcher and through the years has published 40 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals. He and his lovely wife, Lynn, are the proud parents of 3 children, one of whom is a physician, another a lawyer, and the third still in college. Barry Cooper is also a great guy, and it was a pleasure having the opportunity to ask him so many questions about himself, his family, and his work. William Clifford Roberts, MD (hereafter, Roberts): Dr. Cooper, I appreciate your willingness to talk to me and therefore to the readers of BUMC Proceedings. We are in my home on April 5, 2006. To start, could you talk about your early life, some of your early memories, your parents, and your siblings? Barry Cooper, MD (hereafter, Cooper): ank you for the opportunity of sharing some of my family events with the readers of Proceedings. I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1945. My parents were Rudey Cooper (1912–1988) and Rosalie Schwartz Cooper (1918–), and I was the second of 4 sons. ere was a 14-year span between my older brother and the youngest son in the family. When I was 2 years old, we moved to a middle-class home in Louisville, where I lived until leaving for college (Figure 2). One of my earliest memories is learning to play the accordion when I was 5 years old (Figure 3). I practiced before going to school in the morning and took lessons until I was about 16 years old. Education was emphasized in our family. Even though my parents did not have much formal education—each only graduated from high school—they strongly emphasized the importance of education to all 4 sons. In fact, they commented frequently that it would be our birthright for our parents to provide our education so that we could make it on our own. We also participated in a lot of sports. I lived near a public golf course. All 4 brothers thought we were basketball players BARRY COOPER, MD: a conversation with the editor