Dr. James F. Cooper

Dr. James F. Cooper was born January 24, 1934, in Charleston, Missouri. He was educated in the Charleston public schools and graduated from Charleston High School in 1952. He completed his undergraduate degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He studied under Dr. Michael DeBakey and Dr. Stanley Crawford at the Baylor University College of Medicine. After earning his M.D., Dr. Cooper established his career in St. Louis, practicing at City Hospital. In 1967, Dr. Cooper, a captain in the U.S. Army, served as Vietnam surgeon at the hospital at Bien Wah for a year where his team performed 577 surgical procedures in one month. He was then transferred as medical officer to Gen. Herman Westmoreland. At the end of his Vietnam experience, he returned to St. Louis and continued his work as medtropolitan police surgeon for a number of years. For 25 years he served on the staff of DePaul Hospital where he was later named chief of surgery. The American College of Surgeons later recognized the work he had done by adding his name to the permanent Vietnam Vascular Registry of Surgery (1965-1979). For many years, Dr. Cooper was the medical director for St. Louis Labor Health Institute at Teamsters Local No. 688. Upon his retirement, he moved back to Charleston, Missouri, and served as a medical professional on Native American reservations in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Washington, on a temporary, as-needed basis. Dr. Cooper had many interests, including music and the collection of Russian icons and antiques.