Billy Cohn

Dr. Billy Cohn is a cardiovascular surgeon and the Director of Minimally Invasive Surgical Technology at the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas. He is the co-director of the Cullen Cardiovascular Research Laboratory and an Associate Professor of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at The University of Houston. Dr. Cohn received his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College, and received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine, where he remained for general surgical and cardiothoracic surgical residency training and where he served as the last chief resident under the legendary Michael DeBakey. After graduation, he took a teaching position at Harvard Medical School where he rose to the rank of Associate Professor of Surgery and served as an attending cardiothoracic surgeon and Director of Minimally Invasive Surgery at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for eleven years. Now at the Texas Heart Institute, Dr. Cohn has a busy surgical practice, and is part of the surgical heart failure team which specializes in implantation of mechanical pumps to support the failing heart and heart transplantation. With a passion for medical device development, Dr. Cohn has more than 40 U.S. patents awarded or pending for his medical innovations and has been honored as the Distinguished Inventor of the Year by the Intellectual Property Owners Association. When he is not operating or inventing new medical devices, he can be found playing at local Houston bars with blues legend Little Joe Washington, or practicing close-up magic.