TTUHSC professor retires after nearly 50 years, credited with helping bring 3,800 babies into the world - fox34.com

Dr. Samuel Prien, a professor of reproductive physiology and obstetrics and gynecology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, is retiring after nearly 50 years and credits his career with helping bring roughly 3,800 babies into the world.

Prien was part of the team behind the first successful birth through assisted reproductive technology at TTUHSC, a milestone that dates back to the late 1980s. The identity of that first baby has never been made public. His career at the Health Sciences Center stretches across decades when the field of assisted reproduction was still finding its footing.

By his own estimate, Prien and his colleagues averaged about 100 births a year through ART for a significant stretch of his tenure. Beyond the delivery room, he touched the lives of at least 10,000 students over the course of his career, shaping the next generation of physicians and researchers who came through the TTUHSC School of Medicine. For Lubbock families who struggled with fertility, his lab was often the last door they knocked on.

Prien said that watching people take home a baby ranks as the most rewarding part of the work, above everything else his career produced.

Nearly 50 years at one institution is rare anywhere, but he arrived when TTUHSC was still building its reputation, and that kind of staying power shaped what it became.