It’s not often that a surgeon operates on one of the founders of the medical school they attended. But that’s just one of the tantalizing tales from the remarkable career of Dr. Albert Yurvati.

TCOM’s Director of Medical Education and a 1986 graduate, Dr. Yurvati spent a career building a surgical legacy that will be unmatched and a legacy of giving that will be felt for generations.

He spent 25 years as a surgeon, and one of his patients just so happened to be Dr. Carl Everett, a founder of TCOM. What’s more, the man who signed his medical school diploma, Dr. T. Eugene Zachary, later become his patient for open-heart surgery.

Dr. Yurvati returned to TCOM in 2002 and became Chairman of Surgery in 2008. Today he is TCOM’s Director of Medical Education.

In 2012, he pioneered a surgical breakthrough, the Xiphoid. He became the first surgeon in the world to identify the xiphoid process, a cartilage structure at the tip of the breastbone, as the source of mysterious pain for many patients, and to fix it. Affectionately know as the “King of the Xiphoid,” he credited all of it to the training he received at TCOM.

His passion for excellence has been recognized nationally and internationally, as well as at HSC, where he received the 2012 Clyde Gallehugh, DO. Memorial Award and the 2011 President’s Award for Clinical Excellence.

There is no greater ambassador for the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. He and his wife Sharon, married for 46 years, have been very generous with their contributions to TCOM, which will impact the next generation of osteopathic surgeons.

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Contribute Honor your HSC hero today! Please make a tribute gift, submit a photo or share a story that you value. Join us throughout 2020 as we celebrate the people, events and innovations that made UNTHSC all it is today — and look ahead to the next 50 years. For the 50th anniversary, team members nominated people whose contributions make them HSC Heroes. Each week, a new Hero will be revealed. View the list of all our Hero profiles published so far this year. There is a new one each week.