Dr. Cooley Hits Federal Regulation of Medicine

              June 3, 197^ The Shreveport Times
'Dr. Cooley Hits Federal
Regulation of Medicine
By Mike Poe
(X The Times Staff
A leading American car-diovascular
surgeon yester-day
told 1974 graduates erf the
Louisiana State University
Medical School in Shreveport
that federal authority is the
only thing holding up new
testing of an artificial heart
on human patients.
Dr. Denton Cooley of
Houston, Tex., founder and
director of the Texas Heart
Institute, told the new doctors
that the first experimentation
on a human patient with an
artificial heart had failed.
The surgical team perform-ing
the work had barely
escaped a $4.5 million miscon-duct
suit because the ar-tificial
organ had not kept the
patient alive he said.
Dr. Cooley used the in-stance
to illustrate what he
termed the "growing
bureaucracy" of federal
regulation in the medical
profession.
He said he didn't disagree
totally with the idea of
medical regulation but
questioned the qualification of
those involved in the ad-ministration
of such
regulation.
"In your careers, it is pos-sible
that one or two of you
will transgress, but who is en-titled
to regulate and monitor
the practice of medicine?" he
said.
He cited recent federal ef-forts
to curb the prescription
of costly hospital care by doc-tors
in federal programs as
another illustration of govern-ment
interference in medical
practice.
'What the federal govern-ment
may have overlooked is
that some doctors may abuse
the government programs,
but others may abuse them
the other way by denying
patients needed medical ser-vices,"
he said.
Cooley said that federal
controls and a growing ten-dency
on the part of patients
to bring malpractice suits
against their physicians are
causing more and more
modern doctors to practice
"defensive medicine."
'Now, we must consider the
legal ramifications of every
surgical procedure," he said.
But after telling the
graduates what to look out
for, Dr. Cooley said that there
was much more to look for-ward
to.
"It's easier to reflect on op-portunity
available to you as
physicians today," he said.
"Each of you must be
governed by a degree of self-determinism
in order to
decide what you like, what is
needed and what you prefer
to do," he added.
The Shreveport school's
second commencement
jceremony was held in the
Shreveport Civic Auditorium,
with 29 graduates receiving
doctor of medicine degrees
and one receiving a doctor of
philosophy degree.
Receiving special honor
awards were:
Upjohn Award for overall
competency in medical per-formance,
David G. Gaar,
Baton Rouge; Lewis Gottlieb
Scholar Award, for outstand-ing
scholarship and devotion
to patients, Jerome S. Snyder,
Bastrop; Shreveport Medical
Society Award, for possessing
most desirable attitudes in
patient relationships, Aaron
C, Polk Jr., Monroe.
Shreveport Pediatric
Society Award, for interest,
enthusiasm and promise in
the field of pediatrics, Dennis
A. Smith, Minden; Family
Practice Award, for demon-strated
interest in the prac-tice
of family medicine,
Aaron C. Polk Jr., Monroe;
Bick Award, for special in-terest
and accomplishment in
psychiatry, James R. Hund-ley,
Bastrop; Louisiana Or-thopedic
Award, for outstand-ing
accomplishment in the
study of orthopedics, Gary H.
Groff, New Orleans.
Candidates for degrees
were:
Doctor of Philosophy —
Perry Walker Cole,
Shreveport, biochemistry;
dissertation title: "Im-munochemical
and Car-
•bohydrate Characterization of
Human Bence-Jones
Proteins".
Doctor of Medicine — David
Douglas Bryan, Blanchard;
Zack Therrell Buckalew III,
Pineville; Walworth Edward
Burge, Lewisville, Ark.; John
Mitchell Carrington,
iShreveport; Philip Louis
Cenac Jr., Baton Rouge; Wil-liam
Eddins Collier Jr., Ken-ner;
Mary Louise Eschete,
Houma; McMurry Fitzsim-mons,
Alexandria; David
Gordon Gaar, Baton, Rouge,
and Gary Henry Groff, New
Orleans.
Gary Allen Hernandez, New
Orleans; Durell Alpheus Hil-ler
III, Shreveport; John
Robert Humphries, Pineville;
James Roderick Hundley,
Bastrop; Stephen Russell
Keasler, Dallas, Tex.; Ken-neth
Paul Mauterer Jr., Olia;
James Stafford May, Baton
Rouge; James Robert McCue,
Monroe; Mark RusseU Mit-chell,
Alexandria; Keith
Jackson Peevy, Baton Rouge;
and Aaron Cornelius Polk Jr.,
Monroe.
Wallace Gene Reynolds,
Alexandria; William Anthony
Russo, Monroe; Dennis Ar-nold
Smith, Minden; Stanley
James Smith, Shreveport;
Jerome Smith Snyder,
Bastrop; Michael Paul Wat-son,
Monroe; Michael Claude
Wiemann, Houma; and
Michael Francis Zambie,
Monroe.
Admiring A Diploma from the
Louisiana State University School of
Medicine prior to graduation
ceremonies yesterday at the
Shreveport Theater were (left to
right) Dr. Clifford Grulee, dean of the
Shreveport medical school; Aaron C.
Polk Jr. of Monroe, winner of the
Shreveport Medical Society Award,
and Dr. Martin Woodin, president of
the LSU system. Degrees were confer-red
on 30 new graduates in the
medical school's second com-mencement
ceremony. (Times Photo
by Gerald McCarty)