John A. D. Cooper

Who was John A. D. Cooper?

John A. D. Cooper 1918-2002 was an American physician and educator.

Dr. John Allen Dicks Cooper was born on December 22, 1918 in El Paso, Texas. He grew up in the bilingual and bicultural environment of Las Cruces, New Mexico and attended the New Mexico State University from which he graduated with his B.S. degree in Chemistry in 1939. His interest in science and friendship with Dr. Robert J. McBride, a Las Cruces practitioner, were instrumental in his decision to pursue further education in the sciences. Dr. Cooper said, "Financially I wasn't able to go to medical school. But fellowships for graduate work were offered by a number of schools and I chose Northwestern." In 1943, he earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry. Dr. Cooper continued at Northwestern and served as a Biochemistry instructor there from 1943-1947 and as an assistant professor from 1947-1951. In 1951, he earned his M.D. from Northwestern.

This bilingual, bicultural background led to international involvement in the medical field; and for four months in 1956, Dr. Cooper lived in Brazil where he taught the first courses for medical doctors in radioisotopes and biology. Two years later, he lived in Argentina for four months and once again taught physicians about radioisotopes and biology. Cooper was single-handedly responsible for training most of the Latin doctors in these areas of medicine. Dr. Gabriel Velazquez-Palau, who was a visiting professor of social medicine at Harvard Medical School, once introduced Dr. Cooper as "the only Anglo-American Latin" he had ever met. Dr. Cooper pushed for forming a federation of medical colleges in South America. Although the idea was initially rejected, the Pan American Federation of Associations of Medical Schools was later formed and had a substantial effect on medical education. Dr. Cooper was on the board of PAFAMS from 1963-1976.