Clinical Sciences

Biography

David P. Capper, M.D., M.A. (Bioethics), is the academic chair of Clinical Sciences at the Burnett School of Medicine. He is responsible for all planning, policy, operations and oversight of the clinical sciences department, instrumental for instructing students in the science of patient care. Dr. Capper has spent much of his medical career considering patients as people, studying the ethical concepts of medicine and sharing his talents with those much less fortunate. “We have an incredible opportunity to educate a new generation of physicians through a focus on patients as people and members of families and communities, with medicine as a vehicle for building relationships of trust, empathy and wise counsel based on sound knowledge,” Dr. Capper said. Dr. Capper currently serves as Chief Medical Officer of Community Healthcare of Texas, the largest not-for-profit Hospice and Palliative Care company in Texas, and Christian Community Health Services, a charitable clinic that predominantly serves the homeless population. He served as a clinical preceptor in internal medicine at both UT Southwestern Medical School and Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine and currently serves as a clinical assistant professor at UNTHSC. Dr. Capper has received two Medical Director of the Year awards – one from Life Care Centers of America in 1996 and another from Texas & New Mexico Hospice Organization in 2005. He was also honored with the Harris Methodist Health Foundation Humanitarian award in 1999 and the Humanitarian of the Year award from Tarrant County Medical Society in 2005, as well as the Tarrant Area Gerontological Society’s 2011 Mildred Hogstel Award, presented to an individual who provides excellence in geriatric education. Most recently, he was honored as the Gold Headed Cane award recipient by the Tarrant County Medical Society in 2025.

Education

Dr. Capper graduated from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and completed his internal medicine residency at Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center, and a Chief Residency at St. Vincent Hospital and Medical Center, both in Portland, Oregon. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in liberal arts from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and a Master of Arts in biomedical ethics at Trinity International University.

Professional Societies

He is chair of the Ethics Committee at Medical City Fort Worth and formerly of the Tarrant County Medical Society Humanitarian Committee, as well as vice president of the Project Access Tarrant County Core Committee. Dr. Capper is actively involved within the Fort Worth community, serving as medical director of the clinic at Beautiful Feet Ministries and previously as the de facto medical director of the homeless medicine program of the JPS hospital system. He also serves on the board of Covenant Classical School and is actively involved with an extensive list of professional medical organizations, including the Tarrant County Ethics Consortium, the Gold Humanism Honor Society, the Christian Medical and Dental Society, the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity and the Hippocratic Society.