Dr. Robert Alan Houston of Tulsa died on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, from the effects of a stroke. He was 85 years old.

Bob was born on June 29, 1938, at St. John's Hospital in Tulsa, the second child of Joe B. and Helen Houston. He would attend Lee Elementary and Horace Mann Junior High, graduating from Tulsa Central in 1956. He was in the first class of National Merit Scholars and went on to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and a pre-medical student. He completed his MD degree at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans.

While at Tulane, he was paired at a bridge game with Ann Louis DeRouen from Ville Platte, Louisiana, who was a graduate student in audiology and speech pathology at Tulane. They quickly fell in love and planned for their lives together. They were married on August 31,1963, in the Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel, on Prytania Street in New Orleans.

Upon completion of medical school, Bob began his service as a Flight Surgeon in the United States Air Force. Both their sons were born on Air Force bases: Ben in 1965, at Keesler in Biloxi, Mississippi, and Dan in 1966, at Tyndall in Panama City, Florida.

In April 1968, Bob was deployed to the air base at Tuy Hoa on the central Vietnam coast, where he treated both American and South Vietnamese patients in the base hospital and engaged in rescues of downed American pilots.

Upon his return, the family settled in New Orleans while Bob completed his residency in Anesthesiology at Charity Hospital. In 1972 they moved to Tulsa for Bob's new position with Associated Anesthesiologists, at rapidly growing St. Francis Hospital. In his 30 years at St. Francis, Bob played key roles in developing and operating the surgical intensive care unit and providing specialized care during transplant surgeries.

Raised Presbyterian, Bob converted to Catholicism and went all-in, serving two terms as Parish President at Christ the King, in Tulsa.

In 2002, Bob retired from anesthesiology and began the most fulfilling part of his professional life, providing medical care to indigent and immigrant patients at the Xavier Medical Clinic in Tulsa. Though it was a volunteer position, he was again all-in for twenty years, spending many hours each week providing care and helping wherever he could at an institution he adored.

Bob is survived by his beloved wife, Ann, and his two sons, Ben of Norman and Dan of Tulsa, as well as Ben's wife Melissa, and their sons, Robby and Matthew Houston.

A funeral mass will be held at Christ the King Church in Tulsa, 11 am, on Saturday, March 9.

In lieu of flowers, Bob asked that donations be made to Xavier Medical Clinic, a provider for the uninsured working indigent in Tulsa, at 10711 E. 11th St., Tulsa, 74128, Attn: Rose Sloat, Director.

Fitzgerald Ivy Chapel, 918-585-1151