2020-2021 Distinguished Alumni

Dr.

Bob Salem

A native of Sudan, Texas, Dr. Bob Salem completed his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1950, before graduating from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He was drafted during the Korean conflict and commissioned as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps assigned to Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Denver. There, he was part of the medical team that attended to then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Dr. Salem went on to complete his residency in cardiovascular surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, under the tutelage of pioneering surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey. He returned to West Texas where he opened a general and vascular surgery practice in Lubbock and became a pioneer in the region. Dr. Salem and his practice performed the first open-heart surgery in West Texas in 1970 and have performed more than 30,000 total surgeries in Lubbock.

He was vital in establishing the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), when it was purely a School of Medicine, and was the first professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery. Dr. Salem currently serves as Chief Medical Officer Emeritus of Covenant Health System in Lubbock and clinical professor of surgery at TTUHSC.

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