Search Distinctions

 

• Current Distinctions Issue
• Archive
• Submit News
• About Distinctions
• Distinctions Home

 

Smith and Weatherhead Top Off Healing Hearts Campaign

New technology will provide patients with most complete analysis of the heart ever

 

Led by $1 million gift commitments from the Lester Smith Charitable Foundation and from The Weatherhead Foundation, the Healing Hearts Campaign at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston surpassed its $11 million goal to enhance the diagnostic capabilities of the Weatherhead PET Center for Preventing and Reversing Atherosclerosis.

The successful campaign, led by chairs Rhonda Judy and Brian O’Neill, already has provided for a new advanced positron emission tomography (PET) scanner, which is being tested with new technical development for heart imaging, and will enable the acquisition and development of a leading-edge CT-PET scanner (computed tomography combined with PET). In addition, the Weatherhead Center is planning new space to house the imaging equipment and support technologies.

The new, combined technology will provide patients with the most complete analysis of the heart ever produced, said K. Lance Gould, M.D., director of the Weatherhead PET Center.

“This will enable us to obtain images of blood flow as well as detailed cross-sections throughout each of the patient’s arteries,” said Gould, who holds the Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished University Chair in Heart Disease. “These crosssections will reveal where the arteries are critically narrowed, as well as where pockets of cholesterol plaque lie. More importantly, this technology will enable us to see the structure of the plaque itself and determine the stability of the cap covering it.”

Lester Smith, a longtime Houston businessman in oil and natural gas, is certainly a believer. Physically active, with low cholesterol, low blood pressure and a low pulse rate, he seemed the picture of heart health. But after suffering a mild heart attack three years ago, Smith discovered there was more to keeping his heart healthy than just having all the “right” numbers.

With the life-saving knowledge of PET, he has since dedicated himself to Gould’s treatment program for reversing atherosclerosis. “ You have to be committed. This remarkable test can uncover heart problems in your arteries, and when you see them, you see your life. I want others to have the same opportunity,” Smith said.

“Dr. Gould has dedicated his life to this program – I want to be a part of its future and help him take it to the next level. After all, it’s dear to my heart,” he added.

Heart health is not his only passion in life. Smith is also an award-winning ballroom dancer and generous advocate of dancesport in the United States and England. He and his wife, Sue, have been dancing competitively for more than eight years. In August 2003, they won the U.S. Amateur Senior Latin Championship for the second time.

Smith’s generosity extends to a variety of medical causes in the Texas Medical Center. He chairs the Prostate Cancer Research Initiative and the Partnership for Bladder Cancer Research at Baylor College of Medicine. He also serves on the board of Houston’s Museum of Natural Sciences and supports the Holocaust Museum and Jewish Community Center.

Al Weatherhead III, another devotee of Gould’s and namesake of the PET Center, helped finish off the campaign with his second commitment to Healing Hearts. His most recent gift will be used to help endow the PET Center.

Weatherhead, director of the Albert J. Weatherhead III Foundation and president of The Weatherhead
Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio, and his wife, Celia, helped establish the center in 1999.

Early in the Healing Hearts campaign, the Weatherheads gave $1 million to establish a distinguished chair in heart disease and $2 million toward expanding the imaging and treatment capabilities of the PET
Center.

In addition to the contributions from the Lester Smith Charitable Foundation and the Weatherhead foundations, the following supporters helped complete the campaign:

Stanford and Joan Alexander Foundation Ira Anderson J. Evans Atwell Mr. and Mrs. James Beam Dr. Ralph Berkeley Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Burgieres Joanne K. Davis Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Deutser Mark Douglass The Duddleston Foundation Dulworth Family Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Dan Farr Mr. and Mrs. Russell Fleishman Joe Garcia Dr. Steven Glanz Arthur Gochman Lawrence Goldfein David Grimes Ralph Guild Hamill Foundation James Hargrove Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hastings John and Pat Harris Hook Family Foundation The Hon. Roy Huffington

Kayser Foundation Monte Lang James Leprino Locke, Liddell & Sapp L.L.P. Lorenzo Family Foundation MacDonald-Peterson Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Jack Martin Mr. and Mrs. George Martinez William and Barbara Mackey Fund Mr. and Mrs. Gerald McIntosh The O’Neill Foundation Harvey Popell Mr. and Mrs. William Rice Mr. and Mrs. Herschel Rich Dr. and Mrs. Charles Shears The Vivian L. Smith Foundation Larry Stupski John Toomey Ellis Tudzin Diana and Conrad Weil, Jr. Foundation The Damon Wells Foundation Graham Weston Mr. and Mrs. Nikolas White John E. Williams Harold Wright

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime for Gould and for the university,” said Weatherhead, who recently joined the UT Health Science Center at Houston Development Board. “This kind of technology is the future of medicine and the future of heart disease prevention.”

Gould and the campaign advisory board, including Stanford Alexander, Dorothy Brockman, Jerry Deutser,
Wayne Duddlesten, Jack Dulworth, David Grimes, the Honorable Roy Huffington, Livingston Kosberg, Barry Lewis, George Martinez, Randy Miller, Lucian and Nancy Morrison, the Weatherheads, and Conrad Weil, hosted a reception to celebrate the completion of the campaign.

“I remember wading through the mess during the flood; for me, it triggered the idea that we needed to make a technological leap, particularly in diagnosing and treating heart disease,” Gould told guests at the reception.

“Thank you to each and every one of you for making that leap possible. There simply are not words adequate enough to express my gratitude,” he said.

Gould also thanked Memorial Hermann Hospital officials, explaining how he looked forward to working
as a team to develop the new space for the expanded PET Center.

— By Amber Buckley, Development